Part 173 (1/2)
”Consult the statute; 'quart' I think, it is, 'Edwardi sext,' or 'prim et quint Eliz'”--_Pope_, p 399
OBSERVATIONS
OBS 1--It seems to be commonly supposed, whether correctly or not, that short sentences which are in themselves distinct, and which in their stated use must be separated by the period, may sometimes be rehearsed as examples, in so close succession as not to require this point: as, ”But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments He saith unto him, Which?
Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy hbour as thyself”--SCOTT, ALGER, AND OTHERS: _Matt_, xix, 17, 18, 19 ”The following sentences exemplify the possessive pronouns:--'_My_ lesson is finished; _Thy_ books are defaced; He loves _his_ studies; She performs _her_ duty; We own _our_ faults; _Your_ situation is distressing; I admire _their_ virtues'”--_L
Murray's Gra is best adapted to exareat diversity of practice in such cases The seuillemets, or the semicolon and a dash, with the quotation ood reason why the _period_ should not in general be preferred to the comma, the semicolon, or the colon, where full and distinct sentences are thus recited The foregoing passage of Scripture I have exaes, ten different translations, and seventeen different editions which happened to be at hand In these it is found pointed in twelve different ways In Leusden's, Griesbach's, and Aitton's Greek, it has nine colons; in Leusden's Latin froht; in the common French version, six; in the old Dutch, five; in our Bibles, usually one, but not always In some books, these commandments are mostly or wholly divided by periods; in others, by colons; in others, by semicolons; in others, as above, by coative, or prohibitory; the other two, positive, or reater pause after the fourth, than elsewhere between any two This greater pause is variously marked by the semicolon, the colon, or the period; and the others, at the same time, as variously, by the comma, the semicolon, or the colon Dr Campbell, in his Four Gospels, renders and points the latter part of this passage thus: ”Jesus answered, 'Thou shalt not commit murder Thou shalt not coive false testihbour as thyself” But the corresponding passage in Luke, xviii 20, he exhibits thus: ”Thou knowest the commandments Do not coive false testiiven as present advice, _referring to_ the co_ them; and, in this view of the ht See the coe 166
OBS 2--Letters written for _nuh read as words, are never words in themselves; nor are they, except perhaps in one or two instances, abbreviations of words C, a hundred, comes probably from _Centum_; and M, a thousand, is the first letter of _Mille_; but the others, I, V, X, L, D, and the various cons, as are the Arabic figures Hence it is not really necessary that the period should be set after them, except at the end of a sentence, or where it is suitable as a sign of pause It is, however, and always has been, a prevalent custom, to mark numbers of this kind with a period, as if they were abbreviations; as, ”While pope Sixtus V who succeeded Gregory XIII ful of Navarre”--_S_, iii, 82 The period is here inserted where the reading requires only the comma; and, in my opinion, the latter point should have been preferred Sometimes, of late, we find other points set after this period; as, ”Otho II, surnamed the bloody, was son and successor of Otho I; he died in 983”--_Univ Biog Dict_ This may be an improveenerally_ used, even where they are proper; and, if the period is not indispensable, a siain the sanction of general usage
OBS 3--So or needless in such cases, o requires; as, ”For want of doing this, Judge Blackstone has, in Book IV, Chap 17, committed some most ludicrous errors”--_Cobbett's Gram_, Let XIX, -- 251
To insert points needlessly, is as bad a fault as to omit them when they are requisite In Wm Day's ”Punctuation Reduced to a Syste obscure and questionable RULE: ”_Besides denoting a grammatical pause_, the _full point_ is used to mark _contractions_, and is requisite after _every abbreviated word_, as well as after _nuest that both a pause and a contraction may be denoted by the same point But what are properly called ”_contractions_,” are marked not by the period, but by the apostrophe, which is no sign of pause; and the confounding of these ords ”_abbreviated_,” makes this rule utterly absurd As for the period ”after _numeral letters_,” if they really needed it at all, they would need it _severally_, as do the abbreviations; but there are none of them, which do not uniformly dispense with it, when not final to the number; and they may as well dispense with it, in like manner, whenever they are not final to the sentence
OBS 4--Of these letters, Day gives this account: ”_M_ denotes _mille_, 1,000; _D, dimidium mille_, half a thousand, or 500; _C centum_, 100; _L_ represents the lower half of _C_, and expresses 50; _X_ resenifies 10; _V_ stands for 5, because its sister letter U is the fifth vowel; and _I_ signifies 1, probably because it is the plainest and simplest letter in the alphabet”--_Day's Punctuation_, p 103 There is some fancy in this Dr
Adam says, ”The letters employed for this purpose [ie, to express _nu Graain: ”A thousand is marked thus CI[C-reverserd], which in later times was _contracted_ into M _Five hundred_ is marked thus, I[C-reversed], or by _contraction_, D”--_Ib_ Day inserts periods thus: ”IV e 703 And again: ”4to, _quarto_, the fourth of a sheet of paper; 8vo, _octavo_, the eighth part of a sheet of paper; 12mo, _duodecimo_, the twelfth of a sheet of paper; N L, 8, 9', 10”, North latitude, eight degrees, nine e 104 But IV may mean 4, without the period; 4to or 8vo has no more need of it than 4th or 8th; and N L 8 9' 10” is an expression little to be mended by commas, and not at all by additional periods
OBS 5--To allow the period of abbreviation to supersede all other points wherever it occurs, as authors generally have done, is sometimes plainly objectionable; but, on the other hand, to suppose double points to be always necessary wherever abbreviations or Roman numbers have pauses less than final, would sometimes seem more nice than wise, as in the case of Biblical and other references A concordance or a reference Bible pointed on this principle, would differ greatly from any now extant In such references, _numbers_ are very frequently pointed with the period, with scarcely any regard to the pauses required in the reading; as, ”DIADEM, Job 29 14 Isa 28 5 and 62 3 Ezek 21 26”--_Brown's Concordance_
”Where no vision is, the people perish, Prov xxix 18 Acts iv 12 Roe froy”--_Barclay's Works_, iii, 498 ”I Kings--II Kings”--_Alger's Bible_, p iv ”Compare iii 45 with 1 Cor iv 13”--_Scott's Bible, Pref to Lam Jer_ ”Hen v A 4 Sc 5”--_Butler's Gram_, p 41 ”See Rule iii Rem 10”--_Ib_, p 162 Some set a _colon_ between the number of the chapter and that of the verse; which mark serves well for distinction, where both nuures: as, ”'He that formed the eye, shall he not see?'--Ps 94: 9”--_Wells's Gram_, p 126 ”He had only a lease-hold title to his service Lev 25: 39, Exod 21: 2”--_True A : ”Isa Iv, 3; Ezek xviii, 20; Mic vi, 7”--_Gurney's Essays_, p 133 Churchill, who is uncommonly nice about his punctuation, writes as follows: ”_Luke_ vi, 41, 42 See also Chap xv, 8; and _Phil_, iii 12”--_New Graures used as ordinals, or used for the numeral adverbs, _first_, or _firstly, secondly, thirdly, &c_, are very commonly pointed with the period, even where the pause required after them is less than a full stop; as, ”We shall consider these words, 1 as expressing _resolution_; and 2 as expressing _futurity_”--_Butler's Gram_, p 106
But the period thus followed by a sreeable appearance, and some would here prefer the comma, which is, undoubtedly, better suited to the pause, A fitter practice, however, would be, to change the expression thus: ”We shall consider these words, 1st, as expressing _resolution_; and, 2dly, as expressing _futurity_”
OBS 7--Naarly shortened, then written as they are spoken, are not commonly marked with a period; as, _Ben_ for _Benja Dict_
”From whence the inference is plain, Your friend MAT PRIOR wrote with pain”
--LLOYD: _B P_, Vol viii, p 188
IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION
FALSE PUNCTUATION--ERRORS CONCERNING THE PERIOD
UNDER RULE I--DISTINCT SENTENCES
”The third person is the position of the name spoken of; as, Paul and Silas were imprisoned, the earth thirsts, the sun shi+nes”--_Frazee's Gram_, 1st Ed, p 21; Ster Ed, p 23
[FORMULE--Not proper, because three totally distinct sentences are here thrown together as examples, with no other distinction than what isto Rule 1st for the Period, ”When a sentence, whether long or short, is complete in respect to sense, and independent in respect to construction, it should be marked with the period” Therefore, these commas should be periods; and, of course, the first letter of each example must be a capital]
”Two and three and four make nine; if he were here, he would assist his father and ether, and are happy, because they enjoy each other's society; they went to Roxbury, and tarried all night, and ca Lessons in his Manual of E Gram_, p 64
”We often resolve, but seldoh he is often advised, yet he does not reform; reproof either softens or hardens its object; he is as old as his classmates, but not so learned; neither prosperity, nor adversity, has improved him; let him that standeth, take heed lest he fall; he can acquire no virtue, unless he make some sacrifices”--_Ibid_
”Down froe, lovely Anna! hung portray'd, Th' unconscious figure, solden chain was seen,”--_S Barrett's E Gr_, p 92
UNDER RULE II--ALLIED SENTENCES
”This life is a mere prelude to another, which has no limits, it is a little portion of duration As death leaves us, so the day of judgment will find us”--_Merchant's School Gram_, p 76