By the same author A DICTIONARY OF CATCH PHRASES 2nd edn A DICTIONARY OF CLICHES 5th edn A DICTIONARY OF SLANG AND UNCONVENTIONAL ENGLISH 8th edn THE ROUTLEDGE DICTIONARY OF HISTORICAL SLANG ORIGINS An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English 4th edn SHAKESPEARE’S BAWDY 3rd edn A SMALLER SLANG DICTIONARY 2nd edn You Have a Point There A Guide to Punctuation and its Allies Eric Partridge With a Chapter on American Practice by John W Clark London & New York First published in Great Britain 1953 by Hamish Hamilton Ltd Reprinted 1977, 1978, 1983 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd Reprinted 1990, 1998 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1953 Eric Partridge Printed and bound in Great Britain by T.J. International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN 0-415-05075-8 For H A M IS H H A M I L T O N who doesn’t need it CONTENTS PAGE Foreword ix BOOK I: PUNCTUATION CHAPTER 1. Introductory 3 2. Period or Full Stop or Full Point 9 3. Comma 14 4. Period and Comma in Abbreviation 42 5. Semicolon 44 6. Colon 52 7. Parentheses; Degrees and Varieties of Par­ enthesis 63 8. Dash; Various Means of indicating Dis­ 68 ruptive Matter 9. Question Mark and Exclamation Mark 79 10. ‘T wopence coloured*: Compound Points; Multiple Dots 82 11. Punctuation at All Points; Relative Values of the Points 90 12. ‘Not too little, not too much’: Punctua­ tion, Close and Open; Over-Punctuation and Under-Punctuation 94 BOOK II: ALLIES AND ACCESSORIES 13. Capitals 107 14. Italics: Emphasis; Differentiation and Dis­ tinction; Quotation 118 15. Quotation Marks or Inverted Commas, Ab­ solute and Relative 122 16. Modes of Emphasis 127 17. Hyphen, Absolute and Relative; Division and Syllabification- T he Virgil or Vir- 34 GULE OR ObLIQUE-ThE BRACE OR VlNCULUM i 18. Apostrophe 155 19. Capitals and Italics, Quotation and Ex­ clamation Marks, Hyphens: in T itles of Books, Periodicals, Chapters or Articles 162 vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 20. Indention and Paragraphing 165 21. Various Modes of Quotation in Prose and Verse; Relationship of Quotation to Paragraphing and Indention 170 BOOK Ml: ORCHESTRATION 22. Alliance of Punctuation and Quotation: Punctuation an Art, not a Haphazardry nor yet a Perfunctoriness 179 23. Full Orchestra: (i) Single Sentences and Paragraphs 185 (ii) Consecutive Passages 190 BOOK IV: AMERICAN 24. A Chapter on American Practice: by John W. Clark, University of Minnesota 211 Appendix I: A Few Notes on Other Works 223 ,, II: A Brief List of Accents 225 Subject Index 227