The Project Gutenberg eBook, "Stops", by Paul Allardyce

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Title: "Stops"
Or How to Punctuate. A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students

Author: Paul Allardyce

Release Date: March 29, 2007 [eBook #20938]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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Transcriber's note:

Superscripted letters are indicated by the carat character
followed by the letter(s) within curly brackets. Example: ^{a}

"STOPS"

Or, How to Punctuate

A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students

by

PAUL ALLARDYCE

"For a reader that pointeth ill,
A good sentence oft may spill."

--CHAUCER--_Romaunt of the Rose_

London
T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.
Adelphi Terrace
Eighteenth Impression
1895

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE FULL STOP

THE COMMA

THE SEMICOLON

THE COLON

THE POINT OF INTERROGATION

THE MARK OF EXCLAMATION

THE DASH

BRACKETS (OR THE PARENTHESIS)

INVERTED COMMAS

ITALICS

THE HYPHEN

THE APOSTROPHE

ELLIPSIS

REFERENCES TO NOTES

CORRECTION OF PROOFS

INTRODUCTION

_The Use of Punctuation._--Punctuation is a device for marking out the
arrangement of a writer's ideas. Reading is thereby made easier than
it otherwise would be.

A writer's ideas are expressed by a number of words arranged in
groups, the words in one group being more closely connected with one
another than they are with those in the next group. An example will
show this grouping in its simplest form:

He never convinces the reason, or fills the imagination,
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