The concept of author's punctuation often haunts the minds of editors and proofreaders. In what cases should deliberately changed punctuation be preserved in this form? Where is the thin line between the author's intention and banal illiteracy? What is author's punctuation? Let's try to understand this article.
What is punctuation
The word “punctuation” comes from the Latin punctum, which means 'dot'. This is a system of special graphic signs that serve to divide speech into separate semantic parts, both orally and in writing. Punctuation marks are not related to the alphabet, but are a type of language tool - they organize individual words and sentences into semantic blocks, and give the written text a certain structure.
There are certain norms and rules for the placement of punctuation marks, which have their own characteristics in each of the world's languages. The presence of punctuation norms guarantees a certain order in the writing of texts and in their interpretation. However, the literature knows many examples of a peculiar arrangement of signs in the text, which have become exceptions to the accepted norms - this phenomenon is called author's punctuation. Rules and language norms in this case fade into the background, but are not completely denied.
The original punctuation is built on the basis of existing principles. In addition, punctuation marks are variable - often the author has a choice of which sign to put here, which semantic nuance to emphasize. The selected character will be grammatically correct in any case.
About the essence of punctuation marks
Author's punctuation combines such phenomena as the entire set of punctuation marks in a particular work of the author or their non-standard arrangement, which deviates from the accepted rules. Why do writers and poets use this technique?
Punctuation marks for the author of a work of art are the same tools as letters and words. With their help, writers and poets build the rhythmic pattern of the text. They seem to lead the reader through the narrative, indicating that it would be worth stopping here, and here you can accelerate for a run.
For a competent reader, a sentence with the author's punctuation is like an invitation from the writer himself to stop and think about the text. A competent reader will immediately ask himself the question - why did this sign appear here? Parentheses are often used for additional remarks, dashes for sharp opposition. The ellipsis often sets a minor mood - as ifthe hero is thinking or yearning for something.
The correct punctuation strategy is not only blindly following grammatical norms and rules, but also relying on your linguistic intuition, understanding the correct intonation of the sentence being written, and also understanding your intention. The author must be aware of what exactly he wants to tell the reader. It will not be superfluous to try to imagine yourself in the place of the reader and think about how the latter will perceive what the author has written in the context of what he has already read.
When did they start talking about the author's punctuation?
It will be unusual for a modern reader to hear this, however, until the 19th century, there was practically no separate concept of signs placed personally by the author, especially in Russian literature. Many workers of the pen did not care about punctuation marks - they boldly left the right to arrange them for proofreaders and editors. The author's spelling and punctuation could be rethought several times by outsiders. Nowadays, when even a dot in a text message casts doubt on the meaning of what was written, it is hard to imagine that a poet of the century before last could not care about commas at all.
Many of the old works in their original version, we might not have recognized - some signs did not exist yet in principle. In addition, the modern manner of arranging signs differs from that adopted in the old days. Lermontov, for example, put much more dots in the dots than three - their number couldreach up to 5-6.
History of Punctuation: Interesting Facts
Punctuation marks were created and developed gradually, in parallel with the enrichment of languages. From the ancient period until the Renaissance, the use of punctuation was haphazard and not controlled by any norms. But now the era of typography has come - and the norms of punctuation sooner or later had to be unified. It happened in the 16th century.
The creators of the modern punctuation system are Italian book printers Aldov Manutsiev the Elder and the Younger - grandfather and grandson. They are credited with inventing the semicolon, many fonts still famous today, and the first use of a branded publishing mark. But the first punctuation marks appeared long before the Manutii.
Point
The dot denotes the completeness of the author's thought, the logical end of something and is the oldest of the punctuation marks. For the first time it appeared among the ancient Greeks, and in Russian writing - already at the end of the 15th century. At first it didn't matter at what height to put it - it could be either at the bottom of the line or in the middle.
In Church Slavonic writing there was a prototype of a dot - the so-called "stop sign" in the form of a cross. The scribe marked with them the place where he was forced to interrupt the rewriting. At the same time, the stop sign could well be placed in the middle of an unfinished word. In addition, a pause in the text could be indicated with a colon, three dots in the form of a triangle or four dots in the form of a rhombus.
Comma
The comma seems to indicate semantic equality inthe context of the whole sentence of those words and phrases that she shares. In Russian manuscripts, the comma appears about half a century later than the dot - at the beginning of the 16th century.
Colon
The main task of the colon is to explain and interpret. Usually, after this sign, details always follow, giving a clue to understanding the previous part of the sentence. But at first, in Russian, the colon performed much more functions - it was used as an abbreviation sign (like a dot now), it was placed at the end of a sentence, it replaced the ellipsis. In some European languages (Finnish, Swedish), the colon is still used to shorten a word (as in Russian a hyphen in the middle of a word). A colon is also used if it is followed by the author's speech in the text. Punctuation in this case is also supplemented with quotation marks.
Dash
Of all the punctuation marks in Russian writing, the dash appeared last of all - the writer Karamzin introduced it into use in the 18th century. The name comes from the French word tiret - to divide. At first, the dash was called much more interesting: 'silent woman' or 'sign separating thought'. However, these names make it clear about the function of the dash - a meaningful pause before the next part of the sentence.
Ellipsis
The ellipsis sign in Russian was first called 'stop sign'. For the first time in the norms of grammar, it is mentioned at the beginning of the 19th century. Today, the ellipsis can express understatement or some kind of uncertainty of the author in what was written. Also, as conceived by the author, a sentence may begin with an ellipsis, if you need to specifythat the action has already begun.
Exclamation mark
The exclamation mark came to us from the Latin language. The ancient Romans used the short word 'Io', meaning joy, to mark a place in a text that they especially liked. Over time, the shape of this insert became more and more ergonomic - the letter O decreased in size and slid under the letter I. As a result, a modern exclamation mark appeared, which is essentially the ancestor of the emoticon. Now an exclamation in the text can display not only joy, but also fear, surprise, anxiety, anger, and many other emotions.
Question mark
The history of the origin of the question mark is similar to the previous one concerning the exclamation mark. The Romans used the prefix 'Qo' to express question and puzzlement. Gradually, it also transformed into a more compact form. The question mark began to be actively used in the 17th-18th centuries.
Together with an exclamation point, a question mark can form even more expressive combinations ?! and ?!!, under which surprise is most often hidden. Also, both signs are combined with ellipsis - then surprise develops into stunned. In fact, there is already a combined question and exclamation mark called interrobang. It was invented only 60-70 years ago in America and was even used in newspapers for some time, but the newfangled sign did not take root. So if you want to surprise readers with your author's punctuation,you already have an example to borrow.
Interestingly, in Spanish both the question mark and the exclamation mark are also used upside down. An inverted sign precedes a phrase - a question or an exclamation - similar to the principle of open-closed quotes.
Quotation marks
Quotation marks are used to isolate direct speech, quoting, giving the word an ironic connotation, to insert names or rare words into the text, the explanation of which is subsequently given. It seems that no other sign has such a variety of forms - different languages use different types of quotes:
- "Christmas trees"-quotation marks - in Russian in print;
- "legs"-quotation marks - in German or in Russian, if written by hand;
- "English" quotes, double or single;
- “Polish” quotation marks;
- "Swedish" quotation marks - reversed from the word;
- Japanese and Chinese quotes are unlike any other. You can see them in the picture below.
Separate rules exist for quoted quotes. In Russian, quotation marks of the first order are quotation marks-Christmas trees, and inside them are German quotation marks-paws. For example, consider how exactly the following phrase fits into our narrative: “The teacher said:“Write out the sentence with the author’s punctuation. If the heap of signs is embarrassing, it is allowed to use onlyquotation marks-herringbones, while the second, closing quotation mark will combine the functions of both orders.
The primary task is to highlight the main thing
Often the author's punctuation, contrary to the rules, is used where the author intentionally wants to highlight something. Our gaze seems to be drawn to where the extra dash is. The text becomes more expressive and emotional.
For example, emotionally neutral commas are often replaced by more expressive dashes - especially where a dramatic pause is needed. Linguists call this technique “strengthening the sign position.”
Commas can also be replaced by dots. By the way, contrary to a common misconception, the well-known line from A. Blok's poem: “Night, street, lamp, pharmacy” contains commas, not periods.
Features of the writer's style
Speaking of the author's punctuation in relation to a particular writer, they often mean his manner of punctuation. Some people are fond of ellipses, while others, for example, often use dashes. The peculiar manner of writing and arrangement of signs seems to become the hallmark of the writer. Remember, for example, Mayakovsky and his game with lines. In turn, F. M. Dostoevsky liked to use a dash after the union and, and Maxim Gorky could put it in place of a comma.
If we are talking about the process of publishing a book, then the definition of “author's punctuation” includes all the characters found in the text, including those that are arranged in accordance with the rules. After editing the textpunctuation may change - the proofreader has the right to improve the grammatical side of the text at his discretion.
Nothing more: author's punctuation… no punctuation
One of the methods of influencing the reader in modern literature may be the complete absence of punctuation marks. Most often, this technique is used in white or free verse. Sometimes a writer or poet tries to structure what he has written at least line by line, but it happens that he deliberately tries to abandon the even internal rhythm of the narrative. The text seems to be approaching the reader with its solid mass and swallowing him whole, not letting him come to his senses.
Such a work is always a riddle, the answer to which each reader finds independently, placing semantic accents. This technique achieves maximum hyperbolization if words are written without spaces and capital letters - in fact, this is exactly what the text looked like at the time of the birth of writing.
Too many characters
There is also a method of author's punctuation that is reverse to the absence of separating characters - glut of text with characters. In this way, the author can equally express the fussiness or haste of what is happening, as well as seem to mint events and create a feeling of their complete distinctness. A similar method of working with text is called parcelling - from the French word "parcel", denoting a particle. Periods are often used as a separator - many sentences of one or two words make our eyes and mind cling to every detail in the text.
Transforming punctuation:use of emoticons
Whether we like it or not, the use of emoticons in Internet correspondence is gradually gaining more and more importance. There are even scientific papers already on the topic of whether emoticons are considered punctuation marks or not? So far, language researchers agree that a smiley made up of punctuation marks - a colon and a bracket - can serve as such, but a picture from a set of smileys in a messenger should already be considered a pictogram. In any case, emoticons as text separators may well claim to be included in the category of author's punctuation, and their placement rules are already beginning to take shape.
Authoritative experts in modern linguistics argue that the emoticon should be separated from the rest of the text, if not by two, then at least by one space. Also, the bracket smiley always “eats” the period to avoid visual clutter of characters in a sentence - even if it's your author's punctuation. Examples can be found on any forum - for most Internet users, the smiley bracket has even become a substitute for a period, and the presence of the latter may raise doubts - why didn’t my interlocutor smile? What went wrong?
Receive strikethrough text
Another favorite trick of netizens is to use strikethrough text in an ironic way. The author seemed to allow himself a little more liberties, wrote what he thinks - and then remembered that decent people read it, crossed out what was written and came up with a more digestible version. This technique is often used by bloggers with a good sense ofhumor. Perhaps someday we will see a similar example in a school textbook as a sentence with author's punctuation.
Author's style or ignorance?
You can't make a gross mistake in a sentence and hide behind the notion of author's punctuation. The latter always serves as an element of expressiveness, while an incorrectly placed (or vice versa, forgotten) sign simply indicates your illiteracy. Any punctuation should contribute to the perception of the text, and not make it difficult. The author's spelling and punctuation will serve as an object for numerous discussions for a long time to come, but in order to break the rules, you first need to understand them.
