"Stops", Or How to Punctuate Part 7

Now where is the revenue which is to do all these mighty things? Five-sixths repealed--abandoned-sunk--gone--lost for ever.

The highest rank;--a splendid fortune;--and a name, glorious till it was yours,--were sufficient to have supported you with meaner abilities than I think you possess.

There is seldom any reason for the use of double points. In the last example they cannot be said to be of any real service. But the dash may sometimes be rightly employed in addition to the full stop, in order to mark a division of discourse midway between the sentence and the paragraph. Even Cobbett, who abhors the dash, permits it to be used for this purpose. The report of a conversation is often printed in this way.

BRACKETS (OR THE PARENTHESIS.[1])

L. When a clause not strictly belonging to a sentence is thrown in, so to speak, in pa.s.sing, the clause is enclosed within brackets.

[Footnote 1: It seems better to use the term "brackets" both for the curved and for the square brackets. "Parenthesis" can then be kept to its proper use, as the name for the words themselves which form the break in the sentence. We may note that in like manner the terms "comma," "colon," "semicolon," originally signified divisions of a sentence, not marks denoting the divisions. "Period" meant a complete sentence; and it still retains the meaning, somewhat specialized.]

It is said, because the priests are paid by the people (the pay is four shillings per family yearly), therefore they object to their leaving.

In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now (_quod felix faustumque sit_) lay the first stone of the Temple of Peace.

Over and above the enclosing brackets, a parenthesis causes no change in the punctuation of the sentence that contains it; in other words, if we were to omit the parenthesis, no change ought to be necessary in the punctuation of the rest of the sentence. The comma is inserted after the parenthesis in the first example, because the comma would be needed even if there were no parenthesis.

In the second example, there would be no comma before "lay," if there were no parenthesis; accordingly the comma is not to be inserted merely because there is a parenthesis. A parenthesis is sufficiently marked off by brackets.

Observe also that the comma in the first example is placed after, not before, the parenthesis. The reason for this is that the parenthesis belongs to the first part of the sentence, not to the second.

LI. A complete sentence occurring parenthetically in a paragraph is sometimes placed within brackets.

G.o.dfrey knew all this, and felt it with the greater force because he had constantly suffered annoyance from witnessing his father's sudden fits of unrelentingness, for which his own habitual irresolution deprived him of all sympathy. (He was not critical on the faulty indulgence which preceded these fits; _that_ seemed to him natural enough.) Still there was just the chance, G.o.dfrey thought, that his father's pride might see this marriage in a light that would induce him to hush it up, rather than turn his son out and make the family the talk of the country for ten miles round.

Note that the full stop should be placed inside, not outside, the brackets.

LII. Where, in quoting a pa.s.sage, we throw in parenthetically something of our own, we may use square brackets.

Compare the following account of Lord Palmerston: "I have heard him [Lord Palmerston] say that he occasionally found that they [foreign ministers] had been deceived by the open manner in which he told them the truth."

"The _Leviathan_ of Hobbes, a work now-a-days but little known [and not better known now than in Bentham's time], and detested through prejudice, and at second-hand, as a defence of despotism, is an attempt to base all political society upon a pretended contract between the people and the sovereign."--_Principles of Legislation._

To use the square brackets in this way is often more convenient than to break the inverted commas and to begin them again. But in the case of the word _sic_--where it is inserted in a quotation to point out that the word preceding it is rightly quoted, and is not inserted by mistake--the ordinary brackets are used.

"The number of inhabitants were (_sic_) not more than four millions."

Another case may be mentioned in which the square brackets are used: where in the pa.s.sage quoted some words have been lost, and are filled in by conjecture. Prof. Stubbs quotes from one of the Anglo-Saxon laws:

"If ceorls have a common meadow, or other partible land to fence, and some have fenced their part, some have not, and [strange cattle come in and] eat up the common corn or gra.s.s, let those go who own the gap and compensate to the others."

INVERTED COMMAS

LIII. When we quote without any change the words of another person, they are enclosed within inverted commas. If they are quoted in the indirect form, or if we quote merely the substance, and neglect the exact words, inverted commas are not used.

Thereupon the mob bursts in and inquires, "What are you doing for the people?"

Thereupon the mob bursts in and inquires what you are doing for the people.

He says: "There is no property of any description, if it be rightfully held, which had not its foundation in labour."

He frequently calls them "absurd," and applies to them such epithets as "jargon," "fustian," and the like.

The last sentence might be written without inverted commas. By using them we call special attention to the fact that these were the words actually employed, and are not simply words like them.

So, in a pa.s.sage quoted in the indirect form, if part be quoted exactly, it is placed within inverted commas.

The Duke of Portland warmly approved of the work, but justly remarked that the king was not "so absolute a thing of straw" as he was represented in it.

Words referred to simply as words are either placed within inverted commas or put in italics.

The word "friendship," in the sense we commonly mean by it, is not so much as named in the New Testament.

LIV. When a quotation is interrupted, as in the report of a conversation, each continuous part of the quotation is enclosed within inverted commas.

"Pardon me, madam," answered Henry, "it was of one Silas Morton I spoke."

LV. When a quotation occurs in another quotation, single inverted commas are used for the former.

"What have you done?" said one of Balfour's brother officers. "My duty," said Balfour firmly. "Is it not written, 'Thou shalt be zealous even to slaying'?"

Some writers use the single commas in ordinary cases. For the inner quotation they would then use the double commas.

LVI. A word that is not cla.s.sical English, or is used in a sense in which it is not cla.s.sical English, is either enclosed within inverted commas or italicized.

Those that have "located" (_located_) previous to this period are left in undisputed possession, provided they have improved the land.

Before long, Beckey received not only "the best" foreigners (as the phrase is in our n.o.ble and admirable society slang), but some of "the best" English people too.

Foreign words are always italicized. (Rule LXIV.)

LVII. The t.i.tles of books, of essays, and of other compositions; the names of periodicals; and the names of ships, are either enclosed within inverted commas or italicized.

In these "Miscellanies" was first published the "Art of Sinking in Poetry," which, by such a train of consequences as usually pa.s.ses in literary quarrels, gave in a short time, according to Pope's account, occasion to the "Dunciad."