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Authors: Lynne Truss
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needs to realise about the early history of punctuation is that, in a literary culture based entirely on the slavish copying of venerated texts, it would be highly presumptuous of a mere scribe to insert helpful marks where he thought they ought to go. Punctuation developed slowly and cautiously not because it wasn’t considered important, but, on the contrary,because it was such intensely powerful ju-ju. Pause in the wrong place and the sense of a religious text can alter in significant ways. For example, as Cecil Hartley pointed out in his 1818 Principles of Punctuation: or, The Art of Pointing , consider the difference between the following:
“Verily, I say unto thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”
and:
“Verily I say unto thee this day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”
Now, huge doctrinal differences hang on the placing of this comma. The first version, which is how Protestants interpret the passage (Luke, xxiii, 43), lightly skips over the whole unpleasant business of Purgatory and takes the crucified thief straight to heaven with Our Lord. The second promises Paradise at some later date (to be confirmed, as it were) and leaves Purgatory nicely in the picture for the Catholics, who believe in it. Similarly, it is argued that the Authorised Version of the Bible (and by extension Handel’s Messiah ) misleads on thetrue interpretation of Isaiah xl, 3. Again, consider the difference:
“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”
and:
“The voice of him that crieth: In the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord.”
Also:
“Comfort ye my people”
(please go out and comfort my people)
and
“Comfort ye, my people”
(just cheer up, you lot; it might never happen)
Of course, if Hebrew or any of the other ancient languages had included punctuation (in the case of Hebrew, a few vowels might have been nice as well), two thousand years of scriptural exegesis need never have occurred, and a lot of clever, dandruffy people could definitely have spent more time in the fresh air. But there was no punctuation in those ancienttexts and that’s all there is to it. For a considerable period in Latin transcriptions there were no gaps between words either, if you can credit such madness. Texts from that benighted classical period – just capital letters in big square blocks – look to modern eyes like those word-search puzzles that you stare at for twenty minutes or so, and then (with a delighted cry) suddenly spot the word “PAPERNAPKIN” spelled diagonally and backwards. However, the scriptio continua system (as it was called) had its defenders at the time. One fifth-century recluse called Cassian argued that if a text was slow to offer up its meaning, this encouraged not only healthy meditation but the glorification of God – the heart lifting in praise, obviously, at the moment when the word “PAPERNAPKIN” suddenly floated to the surface, like a synaptic miracle.
Isn’t this history interesting? Well, I think so – even though, for a considerable time, admittedly, not much happened. That imaginative chap Charlemagne (forward-looking Holy Roman Emperor) stirred things up in the 9th century when Alcuin of York came up with a system of positurae at the ends of sentences (including one of the earliest questionmarks), but to be honest western systems of punctuation were damned unsatisfactory for the next five hundred years until one man – one fabulous Venetian printer – finally wrestled with the issue and pinned it to the mat. That man was Aldus Manutius the Elder (1450–1515) and I will happily admit I hadn’t heard of him until about a year ago, but am now absolutely kicking myself that I never volunteered to have his babies.
The heroic status of Aldus Manutius the Elder among historians of the printed word cannot be overstated. Who invented the italic typeface? Aldus Manutius! Who printed the first semicolon? Aldus Manutius! The rise of printing
“Verily, I say unto thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”
and:
“Verily I say unto thee this day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”
Now, huge doctrinal differences hang on the placing of this comma. The first version, which is how Protestants interpret the passage (Luke, xxiii, 43), lightly skips over the whole unpleasant business of Purgatory and takes the crucified thief straight to heaven with Our Lord. The second promises Paradise at some later date (to be confirmed, as it were) and leaves Purgatory nicely in the picture for the Catholics, who believe in it. Similarly, it is argued that the Authorised Version of the Bible (and by extension Handel’s Messiah ) misleads on thetrue interpretation of Isaiah xl, 3. Again, consider the difference:
“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”
and:
“The voice of him that crieth: In the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord.”
Also:
“Comfort ye my people”
(please go out and comfort my people)
and
“Comfort ye, my people”
(just cheer up, you lot; it might never happen)
Of course, if Hebrew or any of the other ancient languages had included punctuation (in the case of Hebrew, a few vowels might have been nice as well), two thousand years of scriptural exegesis need never have occurred, and a lot of clever, dandruffy people could definitely have spent more time in the fresh air. But there was no punctuation in those ancienttexts and that’s all there is to it. For a considerable period in Latin transcriptions there were no gaps between words either, if you can credit such madness. Texts from that benighted classical period – just capital letters in big square blocks – look to modern eyes like those word-search puzzles that you stare at for twenty minutes or so, and then (with a delighted cry) suddenly spot the word “PAPERNAPKIN” spelled diagonally and backwards. However, the scriptio continua system (as it was called) had its defenders at the time. One fifth-century recluse called Cassian argued that if a text was slow to offer up its meaning, this encouraged not only healthy meditation but the glorification of God – the heart lifting in praise, obviously, at the moment when the word “PAPERNAPKIN” suddenly floated to the surface, like a synaptic miracle.
Isn’t this history interesting? Well, I think so – even though, for a considerable time, admittedly, not much happened. That imaginative chap Charlemagne (forward-looking Holy Roman Emperor) stirred things up in the 9th century when Alcuin of York came up with a system of positurae at the ends of sentences (including one of the earliest questionmarks), but to be honest western systems of punctuation were damned unsatisfactory for the next five hundred years until one man – one fabulous Venetian printer – finally wrestled with the issue and pinned it to the mat. That man was Aldus Manutius the Elder (1450–1515) and I will happily admit I hadn’t heard of him until about a year ago, but am now absolutely kicking myself that I never volunteered to have his babies.
The heroic status of Aldus Manutius the Elder among historians of the printed word cannot be overstated. Who invented the italic typeface? Aldus Manutius! Who printed the first semicolon? Aldus Manutius! The rise of printing
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