Chapter IV · PUNCTUATION (continued 2)

The omission of the comma between and and beating would ordinarily be quite legitimate. Here, it puts us off on a false scent, because it allows beating to seem parallel with crossing and object to succeeded in; we have to go back again when we get to the end, and work it out.

The French demurring to the conditions which the English commander offered, again commenced the action.—B.

The want of a comma between French and demurring makes us assume an absolute construction and expect another subject, of which we are disappointed.

The next two pairs of examples illustrate the effect of mere accidental position on stopping. This is one of the numberless small disturbing elements that make cast-iron rules impossible in punctuation.

I must leave you to discover what the answer is.

What the answer is, I must leave you to discover.

That is, a substantival clause out of its place is generally allowed the comma that all but the straitest sect of punctuators would refuse it in its place.

In the present dispute, therefore, the local politicians have had to choose between defence of the principle of authority and espousing the cause of the local police.—Times.

Of its forty-four commissioners however few actually took any part in its proceedings; and the powers of the Commission....—J. R. Green.

The half adverbs half conjunctions of which therefore and however are instances occupy usually the second place in the sentence. When there, it is of little importance whether they are stopped or not, though we have indicated our preference for no stops. But when it happens that they come later (or earlier), the commas are generally wanted. Therefore in the first of these sentences would be as uncomfortable if stripped as however actually is in the second.

Dashes

Moved beyond his wont by our English ill-treatment of the dash, Beadnell permits himself a wail as just as it is pathetic.

‘The dash is frequently employed in a very capricious and arbitrary manner, as a substitute for all sorts of points, by writers whose thoughts, although, it may be, sometimes striking and profound, are thrown together without order or dependence; also by some others, who think that they thereby give prominence and emphasis to expressions which in themselves are very commonplace, and would, without this fictitious assistance, escape the observation of the reader, or be deemed by him hardly worthy of notice.’

It is all only too true; these are the realms of Chaos, and the lord of them is Sterne, from whom modern writers of the purely literary kind have so many of their characteristics. Wishing for an example, we merely opened the first volume of Tristram Shandy at a venture, and ‘thus the Anarch old With faltering speech and visage incomposed Answered’:

—Observe, I determine nothing upon this.—My way is ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the first springs of the events I tell;—not with a pedantic fescue,—or in the decisive manner of Tacitus, who outwits himself and his reader;—but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the assistance merely of the inquisitive;—to them I write,—and by them I shall be read,—if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold out so long,—to the very end of the world.—Sterne.

The modern newspaper writer who overdoes the use of dashes is seldom as incorrect as Sterne, but is perhaps more irritating:

There are also a great number of people—many of them not in the least tainted by militarism—who go further and who feel that a man in order to be a complete man—that is, one capable of protecting his life, his country, and his civil and political rights—should acquire as a boy and youth the elements of military training,—that is, should be given a physical training of a military character, including....—Spectator.

It must be added, however, that Beadnell himself helps to make things worse, by countenancing the strange printer’s superstition that (,—) is beautiful to look upon, and (—,) ugly.

Under these circumstances we shall have to abandon our usual practice of attending only to common mistakes, and deal with the matter a little more systematically. We shall first catalogue, with examples, the chief uses of the dash; next state the debatable questions that arise; and end with the more definite misuses. It will be convenient to number all examples for reference; and, as many or most of the quotations contain some minor violation of what we consider the true principles, these will be corrected in brackets.

1. Chief common uses.

a. Adding to a phrase already used an explanation, example, or preferable substitute.

1. Nicholas Copernicus was instructed in that seminary where it is always happy when any one can be well taught,—the family circle.—B. (Omit the comma)

2. Anybody might be an accuser,—a personal enemy, an infamous person, a child, parent, brother, or sister.—Lowell. (Omit the comma)

3. That the girls were really possessed seemed to Stoughton and his colleagues the most rational theory,—a theory in harmony with the rest of their creed.—Lowell. (Omit the comma)

b. Inviting the reader to pause and collect his forces against the shock of an unexpected word that is to close the sentence. It is generally, but not always, better to abstain from this device; the unexpected, if not drawn attention to, is often more effective because less theatrical.

4. To write imaginatively a man should have—imagination.—Lowell.

c. Assuring the reader that what is coming, even if not unexpected, is witty. Writers should be exceedingly sparing of this use; good wine needs no bush.

5. Misfortune in various forms had overtaken the county families, from high farming to a taste for the junior stage, and—the proprietors lived anywhere else except on their own proper estates.—Crockett.

d. Marking arrival at the principal sentence or the predicate after a subordinate clause or a subject that is long or compound.

6. As soon as the queen shall come to London, and the houses of Parliament shall be opened, and the speech from the throne be delivered,—then will begin the great struggle of the contending factions.—B.

e. Resuming after a parenthesis or long phrase, generally with repetition of some previous words in danger of being forgotten.

7. It is now idle to attempt to hide the fact that never was the Russian lack of science, of the modern spirit, or, to speak frankly, of intelligence—never was the absence of training or of enthusiasm which retards the efforts of the whole Empire displayed in a more melancholy fashion than in the Sea of Japan.—Times. (Add a comma after intelligence)

f. Giving the air of an afterthought to a final comment that would spoil the balance of the sentence if preceded only by an ordinary stop. Justifiable when really wanted, that is, when it is important to keep the comment till the end; otherwise it is slightly insulting to the reader, implying that he was not worth working out the sentence for before it was put down.

8. As they parted, she insisted on his giving the most solemn promises that he would not expose himself to danger—which was quite unnecessary.

g. Marking a change of speakers when quotation marks and ‘he said’, &c., are not used; or, in a single speech, a change of subject or person addressed.

9. Who created you?—God.—B.

h. With colon or other stop before a quotation.

11. Hear Milton:—How charming is divine Philosophy!

12. What says Bacon?—Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

i. Introducing a list.

13. The four greatest names in English literature are almost the first we come to,—Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton.—B. (Omit the comma before the dash)

k. Confessing an anacoluthon, or substitution of a new construction for the one started with.

14. Then the eye of a child,—who can look unmoved into that well undefiled, in which heaven itself seems to be reflected?—Bigelow. (Omit the comma)

l. Breaking off a sentence altogether.

15. Oh, how I wish—! But what is the use of wishing?

m. Doubled to serve the purpose of brackets. It gives a medium between the light comma parenthesis and the heavy bracket parenthesis. It also has the advantage over brackets that when the parenthesis ends only with the sentence the second dash need not be given; this advantage, however, may involve ambiguity, as will be shown.

16. In every well regulated community—such as that of England,—the laws own no superior.—B. (The comma should either be omitted or placed after instead of before the second dash).

These are a dozen distinct uses of more or less value or importance, to which others might no doubt be added; but they will suffice both to show that the dash is a hard-worked symbol, and to base our remarks upon.

2. Debatable questions.

There are several questions that must be answered before we can use the dash with confidence. First, is the dash to supersede stops at the place where it is inserted, or to be added to them? Secondly, what is its relation to the stops in the part of the sentence (or group of sentences) that follows it? Does its authority, that is, extend to the end of the sentence or group, or where does it cease? Thirdly, assuming that it is or can be combined with stops, what is the right order as between the two?

Beadnell’s answer to the first question is: The dash does not dispense with the use of the ordinary points at the same time, when the grammatical construction of the sentence requires them. But inasmuch as a dash implies some sort of break, irregular pause, or change of intention, it seems quite needless to insert the stop that would have been used if it had not been decided that a stop was inadequate. The dash is a confession that the stop will not do; then let the stop go. The reader, who is the person to be considered, generally neither knows nor cares to know how the sentence might, with inferior effect, have been written; he only feels that the stop is otiose, and that his author had better have been off with the old love before he was on with the new. There are exceptions to this: obviously in examples 9, 10, 11, 12, and 15, where the dash is at the end or beginning of a sentence; and perhaps also in sentences of which the reader can clearly foresee the grammatical development. In example 7, for instance, it is clear that a participle (displayed or another) is due after never was &c.; a comma after intelligence is therefore definitely expected. So in example 6 we are expecting either another continuation of as soon as, or the principal sentence, before either of which a comma is looked for. In examples 2 and 3, on the other hand, the sentence may for all we know be complete at the place where the dash stands, so that no expectation is disappointed by omitting the comma. The rule, then, should be that a dash is a substitute for any internal stop, and not an addition to it, except when, from the reader’s point of view, a particular stop seemed inevitable.

It must be admitted that that conclusion is not very certain, and also that the matter is of no great importance, provided that the stops, if inserted, are the right ones. More certainty is possible about the combination of stops with the double dash, which we have not yet considered. The probable origin of the double dash will be touched upon when we come to the second question; but whatever its origin, it is now simply equivalent to a pair of brackets, except that it is slightly less conspicuous, and sometimes preferred on that account. Consequently, the same rule about stops will apply to both, and as there is no occasion to treat of brackets separately, it may here be stated for both. The use of a parenthesis being to insert, without damage to the rest of the sentence, something that is of theoretically minor importance, it is necessary that we should be able simply to remove the two dashes or brackets with everything enclosed by them, and after their removal find the sentence complete and rightly punctuated. Further, there is no reason for using inside the parenthesis any stop that has not an internal value; that is, no stop can possibly be needed just before the second dash except an exclamation or question mark, and none at all just after the first; but stops may be necessary to divide up the parenthesis itself if it is compound. Three examples follow, with the proper corrections in brackets:

17. Garinet cites the case of a girl near Amiens possessed by three demons,—Mimi, Zozo, and Crapoulet,—in 1816.—Lowell. (Omit both commas; the first is indeed just possible, though not required, in the principal sentence; the last is absolutely meaningless in the parenthesis)

18. Its visions and its delights are too penetrating,—too living,—for any white-washed object or shallow fountain long to endure or to supply.—Ruskin. (Omit both commas; this time the first is as impossible in the principal sentence as the second is meaningless in the parenthesis)

19. The second carries us on from 1625 to 1714—less than a century—yet the walls of the big hall in the Examination Schools are not only well covered....—Times. (Insert a comma, as necessary to the principal sentence, outside the dashes; whether before the first or after the last will be explained in our answer to the third question)

The second question is, how far the authority of the dash extends. There is no reason, in the nature of things, why we should not on the one hand be relieved of it by the next stop, or on the other be subject to it till the paragraph ends. The three following examples, which we shall correct in brackets by anticipation, but which we shall also assume not to be mere careless blunders, seem to go on the first hypothesis.

20. The Moral Nature, that Law of laws, whose revelations introduce greatness—yea, God himself, into the open soul, is not explored.—Emerson. (Substitute a dash for the comma after himself. Here, however, Emerson expects us to terminate the authority at the right comma rather than at the first that comes, making things worse)

21. I ... there complained of the common notions of the special virtues—justice, &c., as too vague to furnish exact determinations of the actions enjoined under them.—H. Sidgwick. (Substitute a dash for the comma after &c.)

22. There are vicars and vicars, and of all sorts I love an innovating vicar—a piebald progressive professional reactionary, the least.—H. G. Wells. (Substitute a dash for the comma after reactionary)

It needs no further demonstration, however, that commas are frequently used after a dash without putting an end to its influence; and if they are to be sometimes taken, nevertheless, as doing so, confusion is sure to result. Unless the author of the next example is blind to the danger that two neighbouring but independent dashes may be mistaken for a parenthetic pair, he must have assumed that the authority of a dash is terminated at any rate by a semicolon; that, if true, would obviate the danger.

23. It is a forlorn hope, however excellent the translation—and Mr. Hankin’s could not be bettered; or however careful the playing—and the playing at the Stage Society performance was meticulously careful.—Times. (Insert a dash between bettered and the semicolon, which then need not be more than a comma)

But that it is not true will probably be admitted on the strength of sentences like:

24. There may be differences of opinion on the degrees—no one takes white for black: most people sometimes take blackish for black—, but that is not fatal to my argument.

On the other hand, we doubt whether a full stop is ever allowed to stand in the middle of a dash parenthesis, as it of course may in a bracket parenthesis. The reason for the distinction is clear. When we have had a left-hand bracket we know for certain that a right-hand one is due, full stops or no full stops; but when we have had a dash, we very seldom know for certain that it is one of a pair; and the appearance of a full stop would be too severe a trial of our faith. It seems natural to suppose that the double-dash parenthesis is thus accounted for: the construction started with a single dash; but as it was often necessary to revert to the main construction, the second dash was resorted to as a declaration that the close time, or state of siege, was over. The rule we deduce is: All that follows a dash is to be taken as under its influence until either a second dash terminates it, or a full stop is reached.

Our answer to the third question has already been given by implication; but it may be better to give it again explicitly. We first refer to examples 1, 2, 3, 6, 13, 14, 24, in all of which the stop, if one is to be used, though our view is that in most of these sentences it should not, is in the right place; and to example 16, in which it is in the wrong place. We next add two new examples of wrong order, with corrections as usual; the rules for stops with brackets are the same as with double dashes.

25. Throughout the parts which they are intended to make most personally their own, (the Psalms,) it is always the Law which is spoken of with chief joy.—Ruskin. (Remove both commas, and use according to taste either none at all, or one after the second bracket)

26. What is the difference, whether land and sea interact, and worlds revolve and intermingle without number or end,—deep yawning under deep, and galaxy balancing galaxy, throughout absolute space,—or, whether....—Emerson. (Remove both commas, and place one after the second dash)

A protest must next be made against the compositor’s superstition embodied in Beadnell’s words: As the dash in this case supplies the place of the parenthesis, strictly speaking, the grammatical point should follow the last dash; but as this would have an unsightly appearance, it is always placed before it. This unsightliness is either imaginary or at most purely conventional, and should be entirely disregarded. The rules will be (1) For the single dash: Since the dash is on any view either a correction of or an addition to the stop that would have been used if dashes had not existed, the dash will always stand after the stop. (2) For the double dash or brackets: There will be one stop or none according to the requirements of the principal sentence only; there will never be two stops (apart, of course, from internal ones); if there is one, it will stand before the first or after the last dash or bracket according as the parenthesis belongs to the following or the preceding part of the principal sentence. It may be added that it is extremely rare for the parenthesis to belong to the last part, and therefore for the stop to be rightly placed before it. In the following example constructed for the occasion it does so belong; but for practical purposes the rule might be that if a stop is required it stands after the second dash or bracket.

27. When I last saw him, (a singular fact) his nose was pea-green.

3. Common misuses.

a. If two single independent dashes are placed near each other, still more if they are in the same sentence, the reader naturally takes them for a pair constituting a parenthesis, and has to reconsider the sentence when he finds that his first reading gives nonsense. We refer back to example 23. But this indiscretion is so common that it is well to add some more. The sentences should be read over without the two dashes and what they enclose.

Then there is also Miss Euphemia, long deposed from her office of governess, but pensioned and so driven to good works and the manufacture of the most wonderful crazy quilts—for which, to her credit be it said, she shows a remarkable aptitude—as I should have supposed.—Crockett.

The English came mainly from the Germans, whom Rome found hard to conquer in 210 years—say, impossible to conquer—when one remembers the long sequel.—Emerson.

As for Anne—well, Anne was Anne—never more calm than when others were tempestuous.—Crockett.

b. The first dash is inserted and the second forgotten. It will suffice to refer back to examples 20, 21, 22.

c. Brackets and dashes are combined. It is a pity from the collector’s point of view that Carlyle, being in the mood, did not realize the full possibilities, and add a pair of commas, closing up the parenthesis in robur et aes triplex.

How much would I give to have my mother—(though both my wife and I have of late times lived wholly for her, and had much to endure on her account)—how much would I give to have her back to me.—Carlyle.

d. Like the comma, the dash is sometimes misplaced by a word or two. In the first example, the first dash should be one place later; and in the second, unless we misread the sentence and this is another case of two single dashes, the second dash should be two places earlier, and itself be replaced by a comma.

Here she is perhaps at her best—and in the best sense—her most feminine, as a woman sympathizing with the sorrows peculiar to women.—Times.

The girl he had dreamed about—the girl with the smile was there—near him, in his hut.—Crockett.

e. Dashes are sometimes used when an ordinary stop would serve quite well. In the Lowell sentences, the reason why a comma is not used is that the members are themselves broken up by commas, and therefore demand a heavier stop to divide them from each other; this, as explained in the early part of the chapter, is the place for a semicolon. In the Corelli sentence, it is a question between comma and semicolon, either of which would do quite well.

Shakespeare found a language already to a certain extent established, but not yet fetlocked by dictionary and grammar mongers,—a versification harmonized, but which had not yet....—Lowell.

While I believe that our language had two periods of culmination in poetic beauty,—one of nature, simplicity, and truth, in the ballads, which deal only with narrative and feeling,—another of Art....—Lowell.

We were shown in,—and Mavis, who had expected our visit did not keep us waiting long.—Corelli.

Hyphens

We return here to our usual practice of disregarding everything not necessary for dealing with common mistakes. But some general principles, most of which will probably find acceptance, will be useful to start from.

1. Hyphens are regrettable necessities, and to be done without when they reasonably may.

2. There are three degrees of intimacy between words, of which the first and loosest is expressed by their mere juxtaposition as separate words, the second by their being hyphened, and the third or closest by their being written continuously as one word. Thus, hand workers, hand-workers, handworkers.

3. It is good English usage to place a noun or other non-adjectival part of speech before a noun, printing it as a separate word, and to regard it as serving the purpose of an adjective in virtue of its position; for instance, war expenditure; but there are sometimes special objections to its being done. Thus, words in -ing may be actual adjectives (participles), or nouns (gerunds), used in virtue of their position as adjectives; and a visible distinction is needed. A walking stick is a stick that walks, and the phrase might occur as a metaphorical description of a stiffly behaved person: a walking-stick or walkingstick is a stick for walking; the difference may sometimes be important, and consistency may be held to require that all compounds with gerunds should be hyphened or made into single words.

4. Not only can a single word in ordinary circumstances be thus treated as an adjective, but the same is true of a phrase; the words of the phrase, however, must then be hyphened, or ambiguity may result. Thus: Covent Garden; Covent-Garden Market; Covent-Garden-Market salesmen.

The prevailing method of giving railway and street names, besides its ungainliness, is often misleading and contrary to common sense. For one difficulty we suggest recurrence to the old-fashioned formula with commas, and and, as in The London, Chatham, and Dover. On another, it is to be observed that New York-street should mean the new part of York Street, but New-York Street the street named after New York. The set of examples includes some analogous cases, besides the railway and street names.

It is stated that the train service on the Hsin-min-tun-Kau-pan-tse-Yingkau section of the Imperial Chinese Railway will be restored within a few days.—Times.

Hsinmintun, Kaupantse, and Yingkau. These places can surely do without their internal hyphens in an English newspaper; and one almost suspects, from the absence of a hyphen between Ying and kau, that the Times’s stock must have run short.

Even third-class carriages are scarce on the Dalny-Port Arthur line.—Times.

The Dalny and Port-Arthur line. By general principle 4, though Port Arthur needs no hyphen by itself, it does as soon as it stands for an adjective with line: the Port-Arthur line. Also, by 2, the Times version implies that Dalny is more closely connected with Port than Port with Arthur. We do indeed most of us know at present that there is no Dalny Port so called, and that there is a Port Arthur. But in the next example, who would know that there was a Brest Litovski, but for the sentence that follows?

A general strike has been declared on the Warsaw-Brest Litovski railway. The telegraph stations at Praga, Warsaw, and Brest Litovski have been damaged.—Times.

The Warsaw and Brest-Litovski railway. By 4, the hyphen between Brest and Litovski is necessary. If we write Warsaw-Brest-Litovski, it is natural to suppose that three places are meant; the and solution is accordingly the best.

At Bow-street, Robert Marsh, greengrocer, of Great Western-road, Harrow-road, was charged....—Times.

Great-Western Road, Harrow Road. Bow-street, as at (not in) shows, is a compound epithet for police-court understood, and has a right to its hyphen. By 3, there is no need for a hyphen after Harrow, and by 1, if unnecessary, it is undesirable. As to the other road, there are three possibilities. The Times is right if there is a Western Road of which one section is called Great, and the other Little. If the name means literally the great road that runs west, there should be no hyphen at all. If the road is named from the Great Western Railway, or from the Great-Western Hotel, our version is right.

Cochin China waters.—Times.

By 4, Cochin China gives Cochin-China waters.

Within the last ten days two Anglo-South Americans have been in my office arranging for passages to New Zealand.—Times.

Anglo-South-Americans is the best that can be done. What is really wanted is Anglo-SouthAmericans, to show that South goes more closely with America. But it is too hopelessly contrary to usage at present.

The proceeds of the recent London-New York loan.—Times. (London and New-York loan.)

A good, generous, King Mark-like sort of man.—Times.

King-Mark-like, in default of KingMark-like. But the addition of -like to compound names should be avoided.

The Fugitive Slave-law in America before the rebellion.—-H. Sidgwick. (Fugitive-Slave law.)

The steam-cars will have 16-horse power engines.—Times.

Steam cars is better, by 3, and 1. And 16-horsepower engines. We can do this time what the capitals of American and Mark prevented in the previous compounds.

Entirely gratuitous hyphens.

One had a male-partner, who hopped his loutish burlesque.—Meredith.

Gluttony is the least-generous of the vices.—Meredith.

A little china-box, bearing the motto ‘Though lost to sight, to memory dear,’ which Dorcas sent her as a remembrance.—Eliot.

This evidently means a box made of china. A box to hold china would have the hyphen properly, and there are many differentiations of this kind, of which black bird, as opposed to black-bird or blackbird, is the type.

Bertie took up a quantity of waste-papers, and thrust them down into the basket.—E. F. Benson.

This is probably formed by a mistaken step backwards from waste-paper basket, where the hyphen is correct, as explained in 3.

In phrases like wet and dry fly fishing, compounded of wet-fly fishing and dry-fly fishing, methods vary. For instance:

A low door, leading through a moss and ivy-covered wall.—Scott.

A language ... not yet fetlocked by dictionary and grammar mongers.—Lowell.

Those who take human or womankind for their study.—Thackeray.

The single phrases would have the hyphen for different reasons (moss-covered, &c.), all but human kind. The only quite satisfactory plan is the Germans’, who would write moss- and ivy-covered. This is imitated in English, as:

In old woods and on fern-and gorse-covered hilltops they do no harm whatever.—Spectator.

Refreshment-, boarding-, and lodging-house keepers have suffered severely too.—Westminster Gazette.

But imitations of foreign methods are not much to be recommended; failing that, Lowell’s method seems the best—to use no hyphens, and keep the second compound separate.

Adverbs that practically form compounds with verbs, but stand after, and not necessarily next after them, need not be hyphened unless they would be ambiguous in the particular sentence if they were not hyphened. This may often happen, since most of them are also prepositions; but even then, it is better to rearrange the sentence than to hyphen.

He gratefully hands-over the establishment to his country.—Meredith.

Thoughtful persons, unpledged to shore-up tottering dogmas.—Huxley.

It is a much commoner fault to over-hyphen than to under-hyphen. But in the next example malaria-infected must be written, by 3. And in the next again, one of the differentiations we have spoken of is disregarded; the fifty first means the fifty that come first: the fifty-first is the one after fifty. The ambiguity in the third example is obvious.

The demonstration that a malaria infected mosquito, transported a great distance to a non-malarial country, can....—Times.

‘Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?’ ‘In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first.’—Kipling.

The Cockney knew what the Lord of Session knew not, that the British public is gentility crazy.—Borrow.

There comes a time when compound words that have long had a hyphen should drop it; this is when they have become quite familiar. It seems absurd to keep any longer the division in to-day and to-morrow; there are no words in the language that are more definitely single and not double words; so much so that the ordinary man can give no explanation of the to. On the other hand, the word italicized in the next example may well puzzle a good many readers without its hyphen; it has quite lately come into use in this country (‘Chiefly U.S.’ says the Oxford Dictionary, which prints the hyphen, whereas Webster does not), and is in danger of being taken at first sight for a foreign word and pronounced in strange ways.

The soldiers ... have been building dugouts throughout April.—Times.

There is a tendency to write certain familiar combinations irrationally, which may be mentioned here, though it does not necessarily involve the hyphen. With in no wise and at any rate, the only rational possibilities are to treat them like nevertheless as one word, or like none the less as three words (the right way, by usage), or give them two hyphens. Nowise and anyrate are not nouns that can be governed by in and at.

Don McTaggart was the only man on his estate whom Sir Tempest could in nowise make afraid.—Crockett.

French rules of neutrality are in nowise infringed by the squadron.—Times.

At anyrate.—Corelli, passim.

Quotation Marks

Quotation marks, like hyphens, should be used only when necessary. The degree of necessity will vary slightly with the mental state of the audience for whom a book is intended. To an educated man it is an annoyance to find his author warning him that something written long ago, and quoted every day almost ever since, is not an original remark now first struck out. On the other hand, writers who address the uneducated may find their account in using all the quotation marks they can; their readers may be gratified by seeing how well read the author is, or may think quotation marks decorative. The following examples start with the least justifiable uses, and stop at the point where quotation marks become more or less necessary.

John Smith, Esq., ‘Chatsworth’, Melton Road, Leamington.

The implication seems to be: living in the house that sensible people call 164 Melton Road, but one fool likes to call Chatsworth.

How is it that during the year in which that scheme has been, so to speak, ‘in the pillory’, no alternative has, at any rate, been made public?—Times.

Every metaphor ought to be treated as a quotation, if in the pillory is to be. Here, moreover, quotation marks are a practical tautology, after so to speak.

Robert Brown and William Marshall, convicted of robbery with violence, were sentenced respectively to five years’ penal servitude and eighteen strokes with the ‘cat’, and seven years’ penal servitude.—Times.

There is by this time no danger whatever of confusion with the cat of one tail.

... not forgetful of how soon ‘things Japanese’ would be things of the past for her.—Sladen.

This may be called the propitiatory use, analogous in print to the tentative air with which, in conversation, the Englishman not sure of his pronunciation offers a French word. So trifling a phrase is not worth using at the cost of quotation marks. If it could pass without, well and good.

So that the prince and I were able to avoid that ‘familiarity that breeds contempt’ by keeping up our own separate establishments.—Corelli.

... the Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs of the University, though now, little more than a ‘king of shreds and patches’.—Huxley.

We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits—yet so, as ‘with a difference’.—Lamb.

With a difference (Ophelia: O, you must wear your rue with a difference) might escape notice as a quotation if attention were not drawn to it. A reader fit to appreciate Lamb, however, could scarcely fail to be sufficiently warned by the odd turn of the preceding words.

A question of some importance to writers who trouble themselves about accuracy, though no doubt the average reader is profoundly indifferent, is that of the right order as between quotation marks and stops. Besides the conflict in which we shall again find ourselves with the aesthetic compositor, it is really difficult to arrive at a completely logical system. Before laying down what seems the best attainable, we must warn the reader that it is not the system now in fashion; but there are signs that printers are feeling their way towards better things, and this is an attempt to anticipate what they will ultimately come to. We shall make one or two postulates, deduce rules, and give examples. After the examples (in order that readers who are content either to go on with the present compromise or to accept our rules may be able to skip the discussion), we shall consider some possible objections.

No stop is ever required at the end of a quotation to separate the quotation, as such, from what follows; that is sufficiently done by the quotation mark.

A stop is required to separate the containing sentence, which may go on beyond the quotation’s end, but more commonly does not, from what follows.

An exclamation or question mark—which are not true stops, but tone symbols—may be an essential part of the quotation.

When a quotation is broken by such insertions as he said, any stop or tone symbol may be an essential part of the first fragment of quotation.

No stop is needed at either end of such insertions as he said to part them from the quotation, that being sufficiently done by the quotation marks.

From these considerations we deduce the following rules:

1. The true stops should never stand before the second quotation mark except

(a) when, as in dialogue given without framework, complete sentences entirely isolated and independent in grammar are printed as quotations. Even in these, it must be mentioned that the true stops are strictly unnecessary; but if the full stop (which alone can here be in question) is used in deference to universal custom, it should be before the quotation mark.

(b) when a stop is necessary to divide the first fragment of an interrupted quotation from the second.

2. Words that interrupt quotations should never be allowed stops to part them from the quotation.

3. The tone symbols should be placed before or after the second quotation mark according as they belong to the quotation or to the containing sentence. If both quotation and containing sentence need a tone symbol, both should be used, with the quotation mark between them.

The bracketed numbers before the examples repeat the numbers of the rules.

(1) Views advocated by Dr. Whately in his well-known ‘Essays’;

It is enough for us to reflect that ‘Such shortlived wits do wither as they grow’.

We hear that ‘whom the gods love die young’, and thenceforth we collect the cases that illustrate it.

(1 a) ‘You are breaking the rules.’ ‘Well, the rules are silly.’

(1 b) ‘Certainly not;’ he exclaimed ‘I would have died rather’.

(2) ‘I cannot guess’ he retorted ‘what you mean’.

(3) But ‘why drag in Velasquez?’

But what is the use of saying ‘Call no man happy till he dies’?

Is the question ‘Where was he?’ or ‘What was he doing?’?

How absurd to ask ‘Can a thing both be and not be?’!

If indignation is excited by the last two monstrosities, we can only say what has been implied many other times in this book, that the right substitute for correct ugliness is not incorrect prettiness, but correct prettiness. There is never any difficulty in rewriting sentences like these. (Is the question where he was, &c.?) (‘Can a thing both be and not be?’ The question is absurd.) But it should be recognized that, if such sentences are to be written, there is only one way to punctuate them.

It may be of interest to show how these sentences stand in the books. 1st sentence (‘Essays;’); 2nd (grow.’); 3rd (young,’); 4th, as here; 5th (not,’ he exclaimed;) (rather.’); 6th (guess,’ he retorted,) (mean.’); 7th (Velasquez’?); 8th (saying,) (dies?’). The last two are fabricated.

The objections may now be considered.

‘The passing crowd’ is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference. Yet, to a man of what Plato calls ‘universal sympathies,’ and even to the plain, ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more interesting than ‘the passing crowd’?—B.

After giving this example, Beadnell says:—‘The reason is clear: the words quoted are those of another, but the question is the writer’s own. Nevertheless, for the sake of neatness, the ordinary points, such as the comma, semicolon, colon, and full stop, precede the quotation marks in instances analogous to the one quoted; but the exclamation follows the same rule as the interrogation’.

Singularly enough, the stops that are according to this always to precede the quotation mark (for the ‘analogous cases’ are the only cases in which the outside position would be so much as considered) are just the ones that by our rules ought hardly ever to do so, whereas the two that are sometimes allowed the outside position are the two that we admit to be as often necessary inside as outside. Neatness is the sole consideration; just as the ears may be regarded as not hearing organs, but ‘handsome volutes of the human capital’, so quotation marks may be welcomed as giving a good picturesque finish to a sentence; those who are of this way of thinking must feel that, if they allowed outside them anything short of fine handsome stops like the exclamation and question marks, they would be countenancing an anticlimax. But they are really mere conservatives, masquerading only as aesthetes; and their conservatism will soon have to yield. Argument on the subject is impossible; it is only a question whether the printer’s love for the old ways that seem to him so neat, or the writer’s and reader’s desire to be understood and to understand fully, is to prevail.

Another objector takes a stronger position. He admits that logic, and not beauty, must decide: ‘but before we give up the old, let us be sure we are giving it up for a new that is logical’. He invites our attention to the recent paragraph containing Beadnell’s views. ‘Why, in the last sentence of that paragraph, is the full stop outside? “But the exclamation follows the same rule as the interrogation” is a complete sentence, quoted; why should its full stop be separated from it?’ The answer is that the full stop is not its full stop; it needs no stop, having its communications forward absolutely cut off by the quotation mark. It is a delusion to suppose that any sentence has proprietary rights in a stop, though it may have in a tone symbol; a stop is placed after it merely to separate it from what follows, if necessary.—‘And the full stop after every last sentence (not a question or exclamation) of a paragraph, chapter, or book?’—Is illogical, and only to be allowed, like those in the isolated quotations mentioned in rule (1 a), in deference to universal custom. Our full stop belongs, not to the last sentence of the quotation, but to the paragraph, which is all one sentence, the whole quotation simply playing the part, helped by the quotation marks, of object to says.—‘But says is followed by a colon, and a colon between verb and object breaks your own rules.’—No; (:—) is something different from a stop; it is an extra quotation mark, as much a conventional symbol as the full stop in M.A. and other abbreviations.—‘Well, then, instead of says, read continues, to which the quotation clearly cannot be object; will that affect our full stop?’—No; the quotation will still be part of the sentence; not indeed a noun, as before, and object to the verb; but an adverb, simply equivalent to thus, attached to the verb.

Satisfied on that point, the objector takes up our statement that the quotation mark cuts communications; a similar statement was made in the Dashes section about brackets and double dashes. He submits a quotation:—Some people ‘grunt and sweat under’ very easy burdens indeed; and a pair of brackets:—It is (not a little learning, but) much conceit that is a dangerous thing. ‘It is surely not true that either quotation mark or bracket cuts the communications there; under in the quotation, but in the brackets, are in very active communication with burdens and conceit, outside.’ The answer is that these are merely convenient misuses of quotation marks and brackets. A quotation and a parenthesis should be complete in themselves, and instances that are not so may be neglected in arguing out principles. Special rules might indeed be required in consequence for the abnormal cases; but in practice this is not so with quotations.—‘A last point. To adapt one of your instances, here are two sets of sentences, stopped as I gather you would stop them:—(1) He asked me “Can a thing both be and not be?” The question is absurd. (2) He said “A thing cannot both be and not be”. I at once agreed. Now, if the full stop is required after the quotation mark in the second, it must be required after that in the first, in each case to part, not the quotation, but the containing sentence, from the next sentence. What right have you to omit the full stop in the first?’—None whatever; it will not be omitted.—‘So we have an addition of some importance to the monstrosities you said we should have to avoid.’—Well, sentences of this type are not common except in a style of affected simplicity.—‘Or real simplicity. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And is there any particular simplicity, real or affected, about this:—(Richmond looked at him with an odd smile for a moment or two before asking, as if it were the most natural question in the world, “But is it true?”.)?’—In the Bible quotation there is, as you say, real simplicity—or rather there was. That sort of simplicity now would not be real, but artificial. Any one who has good reason to imitate primitive style may imitate primitive punctuation too. But one step forward in precision we have definitely taken from the biblical typography: we should insist on quotation marks in such a sentence. They do not seem pedantic or needless now; nor will a further step in precision seem so when once it has been taken. And as to your Richmond sentence, and ‘monstrosities’ in general, it may be confessed here, as we are out of hearing in this discussion of all but those who are really interested, that the word was used for the benefit only of those who are indifferent. A sentence with two stops is not a monstrosity, if it wants them; and that will be realized, if once sensible punctuation gets the upper hand of neatness.

These are the most plausible objections on principle to a system of using quotation marks with stops that would be in the main logical. It may be thought, however, that it was our business to be practical and opportunist, and suggest nothing that could not be acted on at once. But general usage, besides being illogical, is so inconsistent, different writers improving upon it in special details that appeal to them, that it seemed simpler to give our idea of what would be the best attainable, and trust to the tiro’s adopting any parts of it that may not frighten him by their unaccustomed look.

There are single and double quotation marks, and, apart from minor peculiarities, two ways of utilizing the variety. The prevailing one is to use double marks for most purposes, and single ones for quotations within quotations, as:—“Well, so he said to me ‘What do you mean by it?’ and I said ‘I didn’t mean anything’”. Some of those who follow this system also use the single marks for isolated words, short phrases, and anything that can hardly be called a formal quotation; this avoids giving much emphasis to such expressions, which is an advantage. The more logical method is that adopted, for instance, by the Oxford University Press, of reserving the double marks exclusively for quotations within quotations. Besides the loss of the useful degrees in emphasis (sure, however, to be inconsistently utilized), there is a certain lack of full-dress effect about important quotations when given this way; but that is probably a mere matter of habituation. It should be mentioned that most of the quoted quotations in this section had originally the double marks, but have been altered to suit the more logical method; and the unpleasantness of the needless quotation marks with which we started has so been slightly toned down.

A common mistake, of no great importance, but resulting in more or less discomfort or perplexity to the reader, is the placing of the first quotation mark earlier than the place where quotation really begins. The commonest form of it is the including of the quoter’s introductory that, which it is often obvious that the original did not contain. Generally speaking, if that is used the quotation marks may be dispensed with; not, however, if the exact phraseology is important; but at least the mark should be in the right place.

I remember an old scholastic aphorism, which says, ‘that the man who lives wholly detached from others, must be either an angel or a devil.’—Burke.

As the aphorism descends through Latin from Aristotle (ἢ θηρίον ἢ θεός), the precise English Words are of no importance, and the quotation marks might as well be away; at least the first should be after that.

Then, with ‘a sarvant, sir’ to me, he took himself into the kitchen.—Borrow.

Clearly a is not included in the quotation.

They make it perfectly clear and plain, he informed the House, that ‘Sir Antony MacDonnell was invited by him, rather as a colleague than as a mere Under-Secretary, to register my will.’—Times.

The change from him to my would be quite legitimate if the first quotation mark stood before rather instead of where it does; as it stands, it is absurd.

It is long since he partook of the Holy Communion, though there was an Easterday, of which he writes, when ‘he might have remained quietly in (his) corner during the office, if...’.—Times.

The (his) is evidently bracketed to show that it is substituted for the original writer’s my. This is very conscientious; but it follows that either the same should have been done for he, or the quotation mark should be after he.

We began this section by saying that quotation marks should be used only when necessary. A question that affects the decision to some extent is the difference between direct, indirect, and half-and-half quotation. We can say (1) He said ‘I will go’. (2) He said he would go. (3) He said ‘he would go’. The first variety is often necessary for the sake of vividness. The third is occasionally justified when, though there is no occasion for vividness, there is some turn of phrase that it is important for the reader to recognize as actually originating, not with the writer, but with the person quoted; otherwise, that variety is to be carefully avoided; how disagreeable it is will appear in the example below. For ordinary purposes the second variety, which involves no quotation marks, is the best.

He then followed my example, declared he never felt more refreshed in his life, and, giving a bound, said, ‘he would go and look after his horses.’—Borrow.

Further, there may be quotation, not of other people’s words, but of one’s own thoughts. In this case the method prevailing at present is that exemplified in the Times extract below. Taken by itself, there is no objection to it. We point out, however, that it is irreconcilable with the principles explained in this section, which demand the addition of a full stop (derived?.). That would be a worse monstrosity than the one in the first of the three legitimate alternatives that we add. We recommend that the Times method should be abandoned, and the first or second of the others used according to circumstances.

The next question is, Whence is this income derived?—Times.

The next question is ‘Whence is this income derived?’. (Full direct quotation. Observe the ‘monstrosity’ stop)

The next question is whence this income is derived. (Indirect quotation)

The next question is ‘Whence this income is derived’. (Indirect quotation with quotation marks, or half-and-half quotation, like the Borrow sentence)

In concluding the chapter on Punctuation we may make the general remark that the effect of our recommendations, whether advocating as in the last section more strictness, or as in other parts more liberty, would be, certainly, a considerable reduction in the number of diacritical marks cutting up and disfiguring the text; and, as we think, a practice in most respects more logical and comprehensible.

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