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Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks

Keith Houston (Goodreads Author)

3.95 · Rating details · 1,364 ratings · 263 reviews

From ancient Greece to the Internet—via the Renaissance, Gutenberg, and Madison Avenue—Shady Characters exposes the secret history of punctuation.

A charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and typography. Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger ...more

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Hardcover, 352 pages

Published September 24th 2013 by W. W. Norton Company

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Aug 12, 2013 Dustin Kurtz rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2013

Impossible to read this one and not find yourself exhausting friendships with a million "did you know ...?" conversations about, say, the manicule or the ampersand. Impossible, that is, if you have friends. Which I don't. At least, not anymore. A good book, is the point.
...more

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Nov 16, 2015 Mike rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, reviewed

This book was both a joy to read and quite enlightening. Not only was the writing engaging, but it did a wonderful job integrating the story of these various symbols into the context of the wider world of human affairs. While certainly intended for a popular audience, Houston took his task very seriously, drawing upon an enormous range of sources to tell the story of these symbols to the tune of ~67 pages of references. Houston tells the history of these symbols in a very economical way, not fal This book was both a joy to read and quite enlightening. Not only was the writing engaging, but it did a wonderful job integrating the story of these various symbols into the context of the wider world of human affairs. While certainly intended for a popular audience, Houston took his task very seriously, drawing upon an enormous range of sources to tell the story of these symbols to the tune of ~67 pages of references. Houston tells the history of these symbols in a very economical way, not falling down any academic rabbit holes. Each chapter, which highlighted one particular symbol, was short enough to consume in one sitting, making it easy to put down and pick up the book as needed.

I think the most insightful thing I gleaned from this book was how much technology has influenced human language. When everything was written down there was little to no uniformity in terms of symbols and their meanings. Typically a center of learning (such as the Library of Alexandria) would introduce some technique that would slowly disperse across the greater Mediterranean area. The advent of the printing press brought a level of standardization to language, but also a winnowing. Printers were limited by the letters and symbols they cut so some things had to go. Symbols were lost, others re-purposed and life went on.

As much as the printing press limited what symbols made it into printed material, it was nothing like the symbol holocaust that was the typewriter. Where a printer could cut some custom pieces as needed, a widespread commercial typewriter solidified what symbols would be carried forward into the brave new world, limiting them to what could fit within the typewriter's limited space. This extended into the computer age, as well, as computer keyboards mimicked those of type writers.

The most interesting winnowing of symbols due to this technological constraint was the dash. There were apparently a whole bunch of different dash lengths used for different effects that have now all been reduced to the simple -. But at the same time the widespread popularity of novels and their writing style necessitated some mark that would denote a character speaking, giving rise to the popularity of the quotation marks; technology and social trends giveth and taketh from our language.

It was also fascinating to see how some symbols have changed over time, both in terms of their use (such as how the # has been from denoting pounds to tweeting) and their form (the quotation marks started existence two thousand years ago looking like >). Humanity has shown remarkable flexibility and innovation when it came to representing some non-textual intention, though sometimes it took a REALLY long time. Heck, just putting spaces between words took quite a while. The development of a line break and indented line effectively killed off the pilcrow and for a while quotation marks were made in the margin of a page.

And don't think that we've reached some end point in the development of the written word. Things are always in flux, and with the advent of cheap and widespread computing power there is no reason to think we aren't on the verge of a symbol revolution. Want an interrobang? You can get that. Want a manicule? Not sure why, but you can do that too. But language can also be a stubborn thing, with new symbols facing an enormous institutional and usage barriers.

In any event, this was a swell reading experience. Houston peppers his accounts with witty insights, humorous anecdotes, and plenty of self awareness ([In a footnote] "In honor of their [asterisk and dagger] role as footnote reference marks, I plan to fill this chapter with numerous lengthy and entirely tangential footnotes so as to take full advantage." ). If you love the written word (which, I would hope most people on this site do), this was a wonderfully illuminating work that will give you a greater appreciation for what we have today. ...more

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Jun 23, 2019 Al Bità rated it really liked it

The histories of a number of punctuation, symbol and other typographical marks used over the centuries is delightfully written about and beautifully illustrated in Houston’s book. The publishers have added to the pleasure by having the text printed in two colours (black for the text, and a kind of ochre for all the typographic and other indicative marks which pop up all throughout the text).

It might surprise some readers just how ancient some of the most common punctuation marks have been around ...more

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May 01, 2016 Stacia rated it liked it

Recommends it for: font/typography nerds & lovers of arcane trivia

Shelves: 2016

A book for font/typography/punctuation nerds. The book jumps around through history, trying to pinpoint the origin of various marks. Some chapters succeed better than others. Overall, somewhat interesting, but probably of most interest to those that already have an interest in (or obsession with) typographical marks. Or maybe of interest if you'll be appearing on Jeopardy & need some additional arcane trivia at your fingertips. ...more

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Jan 28, 2014 Emma Sea rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, auckland-library, writing-about-writing, graphic-design

When I started this book I was confident in my use of hyphens and en- and em- dashes. Having finished it, I have no idea what to do with the seven (!) current punctuation marks comprising horizontal lines.

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Sep 17, 2017 Todd Stockslager rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: other

Review title: History, punctuated

You don't see books on the history of punctuation marks every day, or at least you don't see people reading them, which may explain why I was able to buy this at the Half Price Books clearance sale for $2. But if you are a word nerd, Houston tells how words, sentences and paragraphs in your favorite books came to have those funny marks. Whole he occasionally gives examples of usage, this isn't a grammar or usage book, so if you are looking for that look elsewhere Review title: History, punctuated

You don't see books on the history of punctuation marks every day, or at least you don't see people reading them, which may explain why I was able to buy this at the Half Price Books clearance sale for $2. But if you are a word nerd, Houston tells how words, sentences and paragraphs in your favorite books came to have those funny marks. Whole he occasionally gives examples of usage, this isn't a grammar or usage book, so if you are looking for that look elsewhere. And it isn't exhaustive, but looks at some of the more interesting ones that by name alone don't even register as punctuation: pilcrows, octothorpes, and manicules

As it turns out, punctuation history is both important and interesting. Word separation, by spaces, periods, and commas enabled broader literacy, individual study and silent reading, as described in Masters of the Word which I recently read. Houston covers some of the same territory, noting that quotation marks arose from the Christian desire to be as exact and accurate as possible in attributing speech to Jesus. Christianity both drove and benefitted from the innovations in writing, printing, and punctuation in many ways taken for granted.

In fact, so much of the history of punctuation is taken for granted and not documented that Houston often cites some really obscure references and still must resort to speculation or assessment of undocumented statements of origin. Punctuation is so prevalent and seems so fixed that it is treated as just furniture in the house in which words live, and its origins and evolution are assumed or ignored. For example the simple "number sign", "pound sign", or "hash" as it is known in Europe (#). Officially known as the octothorpe, it apparently derives originally from the Latin libra (scales) pondo (to weigh). The two words individually began to be applied to weights, pondo becoming "pounds" in English, and the abbreviation for libra (lb) became the abbreviation for pound. When written rapidly with the then-common tittle, a line just above the letters of an abbreviation to indicate that the abbreviated letters represented a longer word, "lb" gradually took on the now-uniform # shape (try it yourself, and see the example Houston includes from a sample of Isaac Newton's writing, on p. 43). Houston also spends quite some time on the origin of the official name octothorpe for the symbol; another odd punctuation name "pilcrow" is the backwards P that is used by word processing software to represent paragraph spacing.

Introduced into the history of writing throughout various stages of history when writing meant hand writing on paper or parchment it was easy for punctuation marks to be born, evolve and exist above, below, or in the margins of the written material. But with the introduction of mechanical printing with Gutenberg, then the typewriter, then photo-set printing, it became necessary to standardize the shape, location, and usage of punctuation. Houston documents how these shifts changed, established, and in some cases threatened punctuation. His prime example is that of the hypen or dash: he gives seven different lengths of this seemingly most simple mark, each of which at one time had a specific purpose and usage, now replaced in most usages on first typewriters and then computer character sets by just two lengths which are used to create or replace the original seven.

Is our language and printing any poorer for not having seven lengths of hypen? Perhaps not, but Houston shows how the cultural, linguistic, and technical aspects of this seemingly arcane topic play out in our written heritage especially in the digital, internet age. His final chapter is on the history of attempts to establish a punctuation mark to represent irony or sarcasm, all of which failed until overtaken by the ever present emoticons or "smileys" which pepper online communication to carry the body language and nuances of irony lost on Twitter, messaging, and email. Punctuation may be invisible, but it isn't meaningless, and understanding its history makes us better users of the tools of language that make us human. ...more

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Jun 16, 2013 Blue rated it really liked it

Shelves: giveaways-won, non-fiction

Another great Goodreads first reads win!

I think I am rather naive when it comes to history, or I lack imagination. Mostly, I am always taken by surprise to discover that writing in the computer age or the internet age, or whatever age you want to call this, has many strong ties with the past. And by "the past" I mean, like, 5th-century-and-before past. As an editor, I usually write and edit with the "hidden characters" on. My screen is always sprinkled with tiny dots floating in midair between w ...more

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Feb 09, 2021 Stefan Kanev rated it it was amazing

When I first stumbled upon this book, I thought it may be an answer to one of my deepest hopes – a detailed reference on various obscure punctuation and how to use it. I've always been fascinated about the darker corners of Unicode, and would love to go on an expedition to its seldomly-visited depths.

It turned out to be something different, and much better.

First and foremost, it's a beautifully typeset book. It's worth getting the hard cover and enjoying it as an object, not just as a text. It's ...more

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Feb 10, 2018 Emily rated it it was amazing

Shelves: language, nonfiction, 2018

I don’t even know where to start with how much I loved this book. I haven’t crushed so hard on a writer since my brother-in-law force-lent me A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.
With 68 pages of endnotes, his writing brings to mind the journal articles I have to read for grad school, but unlike the dry majority of these offerings, Houston’s scholarly writing is incredibly fun to read.
I smiled so much as I read this. I wish I’d read it on my kindle, because there would have been loads of ...more

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Jul 15, 2013 Josiah rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, education, history-bc, 3rd-century-ad, 5th-century-ad, favorites, 4th-century-ad, 11th-century-ad, 12th-century-ad, 13th-century-ad

Plot: A
Writing: A
Vocabulary: A+
Level: Easy
Rating: G
Worldview: descriptive

I expected to be bored if somewhat enlightened about the family tree of punctuation. To my surprise, this engaging rabbit trail through history ended up being one of the best books I've read all year! Author Keith Houston presents scholarly material with a conversational tone accessible even to school-age readers. Along the way he chronicles the history of writing and how technology made an impact. But the real-life anecdot ...more

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Jul 16, 2013 Kristen Smith rated it it was amazing

Shelves: first-reads

This book was simply wonderful, but I must add a caveat, it is not a book for the faint of heart. If you love history, learning new information about the world around you, love trivia, and were someone who often wondered what that little paragraph sign was in word documents then you will enjoy this book very much. But I warn you - right from the outset, you will start walking around spouting off tidbits of information and saying words like pilcrow and folks will wonder about you. Keith Houston i ...more

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Apr 01, 2016 Nooilforpacifists rated it liked it

Shelves: music-art-entertainment

On the plus side, I learned why paragraphs are indented--and what used to occupy that space. On the minus side, the author padded every point with irrelevancies or distractions. Trying to be funny, he often came off as silly.

In sum, I learned a lot. But it's not a great read; certainly nowhere near "Confessions of a Comma Queen." ...more

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Sep 08, 2017 Stephie Williams rated it it was amazing

This book takes a look at certain symbols used in punctuation and their typographical uses. It is by no means an exhaustive account of all such symbols. It concentrates on a small selection in comparison with all the symbols currently in use. I feel he selected his “shady characters” based on what he found to be the most interesting as far as their invention, history, and uses.

Some of the characters were: the pilcrow (¶) which today is mainly found in word processor programs when you click on t ...more

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Oct 11, 2018 Neven rated it really liked it

I virtually never say this of anything, but this book was too short! Houston is a good writer—efficient, well organized, witty without becoming annoying—and I’d happily read another few hundred pages by him on more characters, or further typographic matters.

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Aug 27, 2019 Grayson rated it really liked it

Shelves: ebooks-local, genre-language, kindle-samples

This was great! From Cicero to ARPAnet and more, Houston covers the history of punctuation with knowledge and humor. Definitely recommended.

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Jun 16, 2013 Katherine rated it it was amazing

Shelves: first-reads, reviewed

onceuponatimeattheheightofthegreekandromancivilizationsthewrittenwordlookedlikethisorTHISBUTTHENFEWEEHTNOOSNEMYRTNUOCDNASNAMORSDNEIRFWONKUOYSNOITAROHGUORHTELPOEPEHTOTEMACNOITAMROFNITSOMDNADAEROTELBAER

orators needed some indication of where to, at least, take a breath. So began the use of punctuation and the development of its rules.

The first two sentences of this review shows a very early form of writing, actually the all upper case primarily in the Greek because that was the only case they had onceuponatimeattheheightofthegreekandromancivilizationsthewrittenwordlookedlikethisorTHISBUTTHENFEWEEHTNOOSNEMYRTNUOCDNASNAMORSDNEIRFWONKUOYSNOITAROHGUORHTELPOEPEHTOTEMACNOITAMROFNITSOMDNADAEROTELBAER

orators needed some indication of where to, at least, take a breath. So began the use of punctuation and the development of its rules.

The first two sentences of this review shows a very early form of writing, actually the all upper case primarily in the Greek because that was the only case they had ( Homer's time ) and the ox-turning style from line to line. One of the earliest developments was the use of dots between words like.this or maybe:this. In time, paragraphs were introduced and a punctuation, that I never knew had a name, the pilcrow, appeared. I'm glad to know its name and I like it--my early grade school writing had so many red pilcrows, those funny looking P's with lines through them like dollar signs, that I despaired of ever obtaining an "A" on an essay or, indeed, ever reach a point where my first submission would be accepted for a grade, without a rewrite. Oh, but the permutations that aggravating mark endured before reaching the form favored by those nuns of my training!

If, you, like me, detest that horrible car commercial with the robotic girl who sits in the driver's seat and crosses her fingers as she intones " hashtag, something or other" you will be happy to know that hashtag, which I will always call the pound sign--for the weight measurement, not the amount of pressure exerted on the keypad, has an alternate name--the octothorpe! And this will now be my new favorite word for the sign. But who developed it and who named it? Well, Bell Labs and touchtone phones played a part.

And how about Ampersand? Where did that sign come from? But isn't it a great word and what would A&P do without it?

How about an interrobang--I want one. When I call out Who finished the toilet paper, whilst sitting on the throne, it is more than a simple interrogatory remark--it is an exclamation of dismay at the same time. What better than an interrobang to express that combination of feelings?

Do you think @ was developed solely for email addresses? Think again! And where did asterisks come from--I prefer that term to star--or the dagger? How about hyphens and dashes--they are not the same thing and dashes come in many forms including en dash and em dash. Even Castle talked about fitting words to the page in a recent episode. Quotation marks as inverted commas? Doubled, of course!

But then there is the manicule--I love the manicule--it is used in rebus writing all the time. A hand with a pointing finger--maybe with a nice cuff or a ruffled flounce, perhaps with hand in a fist or index finger outlandishly enlongated. Originally, not printed in texts, handwritten and illuminated or printed on a press, but rather a device of the reader to mark out lines on which were made marginal notes. One I love is not a manicle at all but an adorable octopus whose tentacles embrace several lines, much like a bracket.

Throughout the book we meet the people who developed these devices that make reading so much easier but make writing a bit more difficult with its rules. We see how the coming of mass produced documents written by hand, copied and recopied, and eventually printed with presses of moveable type caused some of these symbols to be eliminated or changed to accommodate progress.
The advent of the typewriter and touch-tone keypads and, in time, the development of computer keyboards continue to impact punctuation and even vocabulary.

This book does not read fast--it is dry in places but for the most part is interesting and even humorous. The debate that has taken place for ages to arrive at some indication of irony and sarcasm in text is particularly fun. If language and writing interest you, this is a book you want right up there with Roget and Funk & Wagnall and Webster, among others. Looking for something new to bring up at your next cocktail party? Try the discussing the evolution of the octothorpe! Have fun!

This was a first reads giveaway that I will share with my teacher friends and that guy I met at last week's cocktail party--just kidding! ...more

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May 14, 2019 Katie (wife of book) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This book is any language nerd's dream...a whole book dedicated to lesser known, forgotten, and unusual punctuation! Houston is obviously passionate about his subject and it shows through his informal and jaunty tone throughout Shady Characters.
The reader is taken from the Ancient World, Medieval England, the advertising boom of the 1960's, and the dawn of the email in the 1970's. There are many surprises and amusing facts - such as the large variety of dashes, and how many of these ornate marks ...more

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Oct 22, 2016 Spencer Borup rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-favorites

This was, to be honest, my first enthusiastic foray into nonfiction. AND I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT.

SHADY CHARACTERS is a meticulously researched and cuttingly sharp look at the evolution of peculiar symbols like the pilcrow, @ symbol, hashtag (octothorpe), & "quotation marks."*

*among others.

However, as the author Keith Houston discovered in the afterword, this book is really more of an exploration of the development of written language and its stylizing and the evolution of printing. Which was ...more

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Nov 28, 2013 Matthew rated it it was amazing

Serious fun. Serious fun. Very dorky, yes, but a great read. I couldn't put this book down. Now I know what to call the "paragraph sign," the "pound sign" and the "pointing hand" (pilcrow, octothorpe, and manicule, respectively) and why they are what they are. A whole chapter on the hyphen, and a separate one on the dash! Great times! Plus an explanation of linotype and the horrors of optical typesetting! Read this, and you will understand about half the Auto-Correct settings in your word proces ...more

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Aug 08, 2013 Abigail rated it liked it

Shelves: language

This is a nifty little book. Especially if you are a nerd like me. Each chapter covers a punctuation mark. The book is designed to be read in any order and the chapters are pretty short, around ten pages. Each chapter explains a bit about the mark and then goes through its history from ancient through modern times. I found this to be an interesting read and recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the history of language and/or writing.

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Jul 02, 2014 Derek James Baldwin rated it it was ok

Not bad by any means but halfway through I felt that I'd learned as much as I was ever likely to want to know about the subject and decided to end it there. So I will never find out the history of the maniscule. ...more

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Aug 19, 2019 Hobart rated it liked it

Shelves: 2019-reads, 2019-library-love-challenge

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---

When the quotation mark does succeed in sparking debate, it attracts mild tut-tutting rather than genuine outrage. Though there is transatlantic disagreement over whether to enclose speech in ‘single’ or “double” quotes, for instance, it comes nowhere near the level of hand-wringing inspired by the semicolon, whose tricky usage has driven it almost to extinction. Neither does the occasional unnecessary “use” of quotation marks induce the h

...more

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Nov 01, 2017 Jessi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

“[Erasmus] opined that the conscientious reader should ‘observe occurrences of striking words, archaic or novel diction, cleverly contrived or well adapted arguments, brilliant flashes of style, adages, example, and pithy remarks worth memorizing,’ and that ‘such passages should be marked by an appropriate little sign.’”

I read this delightful book on my phone, so the design of my marginalia is sadly lacking, and little that I write is ever “appropriate,” anyway. However, I am thinking of aurochs “[Erasmus] opined that the conscientious reader should ‘observe occurrences of striking words, archaic or novel diction, cleverly contrived or well adapted arguments, brilliant flashes of style, adages, example, and pithy remarks worth memorizing,’ and that ‘such passages should be marked by an appropriate little sign.’”

I read this delightful book on my phone, so the design of my marginalia is sadly lacking, and little that I write is ever “appropriate,” anyway. However, I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this selected set of highlights and my accompanying notes is the only immortality you and I may share, my Shady Characters.

“Remington Rand entertained ideas of a revolution in punctuation with its new interrobang key, and said as much in an internal newsletter, explaining that ‘[the] Interrobang is already receiving favorable comments from typographers who are said to commend it for its ability to express the incredibility of modern life.’” – time for an interrobang revival at now?!

“Perhaps the most famous footnote of all, and one that surely would have to be invented did it not already exist, occurs in the Reverend John Hodgson’s magnum opus, his six-volume History of Northumberland, published between 1820 and 1840. In a work already renowned for its thoroughness, the third volume further distinguished itself by dint of a mammoth 165-page footnote describing the history of Roman walls in Britain.” – ~i’m in love with a footnote~ /t-pain voice

“Consider, for instance, the following characters: [an array of dash-like figures that do not render correctly here] and - . Which of these are hyphens? The first four are all dashes, the fifth is the mathematical minus sign, the sixth is an ugly chimera called the hyphen-minus—a hyphenated hyphen” – What the FUCK

“in 2007 bibliophiles were aghast when the Oxford English Dictionary dropped the hyphen from around 16,000 compound terms.” – aghast as shit tbh

“Whereas the modern writer or compositor is hamstrung by a multitude of rules controlling where a word may safely be broken, in Gutenberg’s day the first rule of Hyphenation Club was that there are no rules.” - :)

“By 1878, the librettist W.S. Gilbert (more famous as one half of Gilbert and Sullivan) could poke fun at the increasingly euphemistic use of ‘d’ for ‘damn,’ and had the captain of HMS Pinafore sing, ‘Bad language or abuse, / I never, never use [...] I never use the big, big D.’” – lollll
...more

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Jul 08, 2020 Paul rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, nonfiction, linguistics

I love this book. It is occasionally a bit self-indulgent in its little flourishes (like sometimes the orthography and style of the book will change to match something that the book is talking about), but the deep dives into these random pieces of punctuation are simply fascinating.

There's also a decent depth of information in this book from a "tech" perspective — interestingly, this book cites the Python 2.7.1 documentation for the use of # to indicate comments. It seems that the author's day j I love this book. It is occasionally a bit self-indulgent in its little flourishes (like sometimes the orthography and style of the book will change to match something that the book is talking about), but the deep dives into these random pieces of punctuation are simply fascinating.

There's also a decent depth of information in this book from a "tech" perspective — interestingly, this book cites the Python 2.7.1 documentation for the use of # to indicate comments. It seems that the author's day job is writing medical imaging software, and so he apparently has a tech background. Still, technology is an interesting driver / regularizer of orthography at the moment, since almost all writing these days is mediated by a computer, which makes some things easy to write and other things hard or impossible.

One thing that you will definitely get out of this book is anecdotes. I highlighted many passages and populated a bunch of my initial "today I learned" repository from this book. A few interesting things that I took note of:

- The octothorpe / hash / pound / number symbol (#) is derived from a ligature for lb meaning “pound”: ℔ (U+2114). The extra line comes from the fact that a previous scribal notation indicated abbreviations with a “tittle” or overbar.
- The practice of indenting new paragraphs came from printers leaving a large space for hand-written pilcrow characters (¶) and other ornamented marks to be added by a “rubricator”; as the volume of printed documents grew not all the empty space was filled, and the indentation itself eventually took over as the way to mark a new paragraph.
- Daniel DeFoe originally was named Daniel Foe, but added "De" to sound more aristocratic. He also wrote a book with the intense title: The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and dies a Penitent. (I think at the time it was more common to have a "title-as-summary-of-contents".

Definitely worth a read, and apparently there is an ongoing blog on the same topic by the same author: https://shadycharacters.co.uk/ ...more

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Aug 29, 2018 Chris Kelly rated it it was amazing

A book about the history of (obscure and not so obscure) punctuation marks? Believe me, it's not as boring as you might think at first. This book is an interesting look into the origins of some of the punctuation marks you use every day ( and even some you might never have heard of). You won't think of writing the same way again once you've finished. ...more

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Oct 20, 2020 Sai Gayatri Vemuri rated it really liked it

I thought I had another half-book of reading left, turns out those are the Acknowledgments.

A fun read, lots of information, delightfully chronological. A history of punctuation is exactly what's missing from your bookshelf, go pick this up! ...more

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Aug 25, 2017 Marc rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Splendid little book, deeply researched and referenced - and it's always refreshing to read an author who's prepared to say "lots of cute theories, but this remains origin unknown". ...more

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Sep 20, 2018 Patricia rated it liked it

Shelves: adult, non-fiction

Interesting topic, and just the right blend of academic scholarship and accessible language

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Sep 23, 2020 Becky rated it liked it

I mostly enjoyed this recent "impulse request" from the library. I Googled the name of what I now know is a pilcrow, and learned about this book. If you want to know more about the history of punctuation and typographical symbols, look no further. It takes you from the dawn of written communication (no punctuation!) to our present day struggle of trying to find a universally accepted irony mark. ...more

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Jan 13, 2019 Phoenix rated it really liked it

Shelves: linguistics, history

GÂ¶#â€-_:@&>¡Â£;*¿ â€ â€¡Â»/|' Interesting!

Breezy, light and filled with historic digressions (ie: the life of Cicero and his scribe Tiro), this is a gracious look at the evolution of (mostly English) punctuation. It's quite fascinating to learn of the role technology had to play in adoption of various conventions. For example, it wasn't until the 8th century that a rounded lower case was introduced into the Latin alphabet (pp13) - those Roman scribes were chiselers and it was far easier to carv GÂ¶#â€-_:@&>¡Â£;*¿ â€ â€¡Â»/|' Interesting!

Breezy, light and filled with historic digressions (ie: the life of Cicero and his scribe Tiro), this is a gracious look at the evolution of (mostly English) punctuation. It's quite fascinating to learn of the role technology had to play in adoption of various conventions. For example, it wasn't until the 8th century that a rounded lower case was introduced into the Latin alphabet (pp13) - those Roman scribes were chiselers and it was far easier to carve lettering in a uniform angular manner. It was the flexibility of quills and vellum that made it possible to create a more variegated collection of fonts. Spaces were a waste of space - gaps between words were added later on so that the less educated among us wouldn't have to work as hard figuring out where one word ended and the next began. The ornamental pilcrow ¶ was used to introduce paragraphs, and still survives in the hidden text of computer typography. Traditionally it was drawn by hand and marked in red - printers, lacking the time to do this, left the area blank, which is how we wound up with paragraph indentation.

Another area covered is the use of punctuation to indicate tonality and meaning. The ! and ? partly fill that role, but M. K. Specter's faddish interrobang ', created in 1962, admirably captures the idea of an emphatic rhetorical questions, though I much prefer the suggested alternative: consternation mark. The contemporary French author Jean Pierre Hervé-Bazin proposed 6 such symbols to indicate different modes of a sentence, including love, irony and doubt (pp219-220). Another punctuation mark that has yet to find common use is one to indicate sarcasm, though the author traces several attempts to introduce such symbols into typefaces and our lexicon. One supposes that given that Unicode, the modern standard for computer encoding of letters has recently added a set of emojis, there might still be room for other useful letters.

Perhaps surprisingly there is very little discussion of the apostrophe and none at all on the history of its bifurcated use as a possessive and contraction, nor does Mr. H. tackle the use of periods as abbreviations. There's a too brief mention of square brackets and parenthesis on page 235 (their use as an aside, but no backstory), and no mention of the convention of using colons to introduce a speech (as often happens in scripted dialog) or as introduction to an idea, to whit: where do the backquote `, ^ and $ come from. There's a good section on quotes, even attempts to differentiate the use of single quotes from double quotes, but nothing on how to deal with one person quoting another - the age old problem of quoting a quote. And of course an entirely other book could cover symbols used in mathematical notation.

Still it's a very worthwhile and well researched book.

(1) Houston's coverage of the footnote in chapter 6, pp108-114 is exemplary. ...more

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