Over at Good, Anne Trubek writes that emoticons have a natural place in the history of punctuation. Moreover, she suggests that the development of punctuation marks irritated some people as much as emoticons irk today’s grammar police. Even the spaces between words are punctuation, Trubek reminds us:

A space is a punctuation mark, remember, so in those days, everyone used a script called scripta continua, which, as you may guessed, meant therewerenospacesbetweenwords. As more people began reading, itbecamehardertoreadthedamnedmanuscripts, and punctuation marks were invented to ease reading aloud.

The earliest marks indicated how a speaker’s voice should adjust to reflect the tone of the words. Punctus interrogativus is a precursor to today’s question mark, and it indicates that the reader should raise his voice to indicate inquisitiveness. Tone and voice were literal in those days: Punctuation told the speaker how to express the words he was reading out loud to his audience, or to himself. A question mark, a comma, a space between two words: These are symbols that denote written tone and voice for a primarily literate—as opposed to oral—culture. There is no significant difference between them and a modern emoticon.

It is true that some people go overboard, cluttering their writing with silly waving hands and kissy faces. But the same outpouring of new marks occurred in the Middle Ages, too, when the old hoary punctuation marks—the ones we now teach 5th graders—were new and exciting.

(Thanks, The Book Bench.)

Source: Good

Type geeks will appreciate The Ampersand, a blog dedicated to “the most attractive punctuation mark of them all.” Readers can submit images of ampersands, from simple to ornate, ugly to artsy.

(Thanks l’etoile.)

Not one to sit in idle surveillance of the decline of proper punctuation, the lit-mag Taddle Creek has launched a bold (and humorous!) campaign against the maddening misuse of the common apostrophe.

Grammatically speaking, the apostrophe plays several roles, but it’s when the little fellow stands in for letters or numbers that’s got the folks at the Toronto-based magazine all worked up, citing atrocities such as Guns N’ Roses, Nice ’n Easy, and rock ‘n’ roll, which “translates to a sarcastic letter ‘n’ framed by the word ‘rock’ on one side and ‘roll’ on the other.”

Here’s how it’s supposed to happen: Apostrophes always curve to the right, like this ’, and never to the left, like this ‘, which is just a left-facing quote mark frontin' like it can do the apostrophe's job. For sassy ’n’ superb results, apostrophes should go wherever letters and numbers are missing. Taddle Creek points a wagging finger at the computer, which assumes “the depression of the apostrophe key before a word is meant as a single left quotation mark, turns the apostrophe around, and ignorance is off and running.” Blasted technology.

But this isn’t just an idle rant: The magazine intends to send letters to parties guilty of apostrophe misuse, and encourages its readers to do the same. Any interesting responses will be printed in a future issue.

—Julie Hanus