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A Treatise on English Punctuation Designed for Letter-Writers, Authors, Printers, and Correctors of the Press [etc.]
A Treatise on English Punctuation Designed for Letter-Writers Authors Printers and Correctors of the Press - etc. Author:John Wilson General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1856 Original Publisher: Crosby, Nichols and co. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where... more » you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: 26 CHAPTER IL THE GRAMMATICAL POINTS. In accordance with the plan proposed in the last section, this chapter will be devoted to the consideration of the principal sentential marks, namely, -- 1. The Comma [ , l 2. The Semicolon [ ; l 3. The Colon [ : l 4. The Period [ . l The Comma marks the smallest grammatical division of a sentence, and usually represents the shortest pause; the Semicolon and the Colon separate those portions which are less connected than those divided by commas, and admit each of a greater pause; and the Period is, what its name denotes, a full stop, which commonly terminates a sentence. B E M A E K. The names of the points have been borrowed by grammarians from the terms which rhetoricians employed to indicate the various kinds of sentences, and the parts of which they consist. Thus the Period signified a complete circuit of words; a sentence, making, from its commencement to its close, full and perfect sense. The Colon was the greatest member or division of a period or sentence; and the Semicolon, the greatest division of a colon; while the Comma indicated a smaller segment of the period, -- the least constructive part of a sentence. 27 Sect. L -- THE COMMA. The Comma [ , ] marks the smallest grammatical division in written or printed language, and commonly represents the shortest pause in reading or delivery. REMARKS. a. Agreeably to the principles contended for in the Introduction, it will be noticed that the comma is here said, not to mark the smallest segment of a composition, but only the least grammatical divis...« less