PUNCH. 548 PUNCTUATION. has been typically English — so much so that it has been "friMjUfntly niisumlorstood by foreign critical opinion, with the result that its insularity has lost lor it the best work of non-English con- tributors. An exception to this rule was the en- gagement of 'Arteinus Ward.' The renowned French caricaturist Caran d'Aclie has also drawn for it. A list of the Englishmen who have met ■weekly about the talile on which most of them have carved their initials would include many of the best-known writers and artists. .4inong the for- mer may be mentioned Douglas .Jerrold, Thomas Hood, and Thackeray, who wrote for it until 1854; among the latter. Keene, Sanibourne, Leech, Tcmiiel, Briton Rivi&re, du Marnier, Harry Furniss. and Phil May. Lemon was editor from the beginning until 1870: the later editors have been Sliirley Brooks, 1870-74; Tom Taylor, 1874-80; and Sir'l'. C. Burnand, 1880—. Consult: Spielmann, The Histury of Punch (London, 1805) ; Mayhew, A Jorum of Punch (ib., 1895). PUNCH (from ML. punctuare, ■punctarc. to pierce, from Lat. punctuin, punctus, point, from puiiyeie, to pierce). A tool for cutting circular or other shaped pieces out of metal, wood, or -other materials. The simplest form of this in- strument consists of a piece of steel formed at one end into a hollow cylinder, the end of which is ground to a very sharp cutting edge. The other end of the punch is made strong and thick, to receive blows from a hammer, and to serve as & handle. When the instrument is in use, the cutting edge is applied to the surface which is to be perforated, and a blow sufficiently hard is struck on the end of the handle, when a circular piece of the material is cut out and left in the hollow part, which can be removed at the upper •end of the cylinder. Punches are also made where a die or punch fits accurately into a cor- responding hole through which the material is forced. See Dies and Die Sinking. For punch- ing macliines. see Metal- Working Machinery. PUNCTUATION (ML. punctuatio. from pii)ii:lniir( . puncture, to pierce). In writing or printing, the use of certain marks called points, to separate sentences and parts of sentences. Its most important office is that of preventing am- biguity or obscurity. More inclusively, its ob- ject is to indicate correct grouping of the words, as an aid to quick perception of their relation- ships, and so of their meaning. In Greek inscriptions and manuscripts gener- ally, there is no attempt to separate the words, and in early times no system of punctuation was employed. It is true that in some archaic in- scriptions columns of dots are occasionally found separating words, but they have no reference to the pauses, and cannot properly be called punc- tuation. However, even by the end of the fourth century B.C., readers found it conenient to indi- cate pauses by arbitrary signs, though the pub- lished copies of books seem to have known no division of words or use of diacritical signs. The development of an organized system of punctua- tion seems to have occurred at Alexandria. To judge from the papyri, the earliest mark is used to indicate a new paragraph. Here a slight space is left in the line (later a large initial is sometimes found), while below the line in which the pause occurs is drawn a short horizontal line (the so-called 7Tapaypa<j>oc, pararirapltos) which sometimes takes the form of a wedge. This sign is used in the plays to indicate a change of speaker, and in the papyrus of Bacchylides to mark in the odes the strophe, antistrophe, and epode. Another method was the employment of a dot or small circle, and we are told that Aris- tarchus of Byzantium s.vstematized this use, so that the point high above the line indicated a full stop, that low on the line a lesser pause, like a semicolon, and the point in the middle a conuna. This system, liowever, though accepted by the grammarians, does not ai)])ear in the papyri, where the point is usually placed liigli, whatever its value. In general it may be said that these and other diacritical signs seem to have been used chieHy in editions of the poets, whose dialectic* and archaic forms presented greater difficulties to the ordinary reader. Other systems, some of great complexity, were employed by later gram- marians and editors, but did not come into general use. The Greek manuscripts of later date sliow a system more like that now employed. About the ninth century the comma appears to denote the slight pause, while the high dot ( • ) indicates a colon or .semicolon, and the full stop is denoted by a larger dot or double dot and a space. A little later the interrogation point ( ; ). appears, though not very frequently. The Latin grammarians adopted the punctuation by dots from the Greeks, but seemingly mo<lified the system slightly so as to give the middle dot the middle valucj and the lower the smallest. The oldest manuscripts, however, show no punctua- tion at all, and the later uncials show great variety, and no recognized .system. In the seventh century we find the equivalent to a comma, the semicolon with its modern value, and a full stop expressed by a more coni])lex sign. In the Carolingian and later manuscripts the system is somewhat altered, and approaches more closely that in common use, as the connna is introduced, and an inverted .semicolon to indi- cate a pause between comma and semicolon, while a sign of interrogation also appears. Quo- tation marks in various forms are found early in both Greek and Latin manuscripts. All modern languages agree ))ractically in the use of the same points, applied according to prin- ciples laid down by Aldus Manutius ( 1450-1515), but since his time, of course, extensively devel- oped. Differences in detail between langiuiges rest mainly on different methods of thought and con- struction, though some jieculiarities are arbitrary. In Sjianish a question or an exclamation has its especial mark at the beginning as well as at the end. French has a peculiar set of quotation marks, and German uses commas in normal position at the beginning and inverted commas at the close of a quotation. But the leading principles are uni- versal. Punctuation in English is legitimately subject in many respects to personal choice, since many sentences, when not very long and of simple construction, are equally clear whether points are or are not freely used. Liberal in- sertion of points is called close punctuation, and omission of all but those absolutely necessary is known as open punctuation. The latter practice probably prevails at present in the best English usage, although the only statement that may be made with certainty in this respect is that usage is not uniform. Differing methods of pointing have been called
