Section IV.—The Period

The Period, or Full Stop, is used to mark an entire and independent sentence, whether simple or compound.

Rule I.—Distinct Sentences.

When a sentence, whether long or short, is complete in respect to sense, and independent in respect to construction, it should be marked with the period: as, "Every deviation from truth is criminal. Abhor a falsehood. Let your words be ingenuous. Sincerity possesses the most powerful charm."—"The force of a true individual is felt through every clause and part of a right book; the commas and dashes are alive with it."—R. W. Emerson.

"By frequent trying, TROY was won.
All things, by trying, may be done."—Lloyd, p. 184.

Rule II.—Allied Sentences.

The period is often employed between two sentences which have a general connexion, expressed by a personal pronoun, a conjunction, or a conjunctive adverb: as, "The selfish man languishes in his narrow circle of pleasures. They are confined to what affects his own interests. He is obliged to repeat the same gratifications, till they become insipid. But the man of virtuous sensibility moves in a wider sphere of felicity."—Blair.

"And whether we shall meet again, I know not. Therefore our everlasting farewell take."—Shak., J. C.

Rule III.—Abbreviations.

The period is generally used after abbreviations, and very often to the exclusion of other points; but, as in this case it is not a constant sign of pause, other points may properly follow it, if the words written in full would demand them: as, A. D. for Anno Domini;—Pro tem. for pro tempore;—Ult. for ultimo;—i.e. for id est, that is;—Add., Spect, No. 285; i.e., Addison, in the Spectator, Number 285th.

"Consult the statute; 'quart.' I think, it is,
'Edwardi sext.,' or 'prim. et quint. Eliz.'"—Pope, p. 399.

Observations.

OBS. 1.—It seems to be commonly supposed, whether correctly or not, that short sentences which are in themselves distinct, and which in their stated use must be separated by the period, may sometimes be rehearsed as examples, in so close succession as not to require this point: as, "But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."—SCOTT, ALGER, AND OTHERS: Matt., xix, 17, 18, 19. "The following sentences exemplify the possessive pronouns:—'My lesson is finished; Thy books are defaced; He loves his studies; She performs her duty; We own our faults; Your situation is distressing; I admire their virtues.'"—L. Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 55. What mode of pointing is best adapted to examples like these, is made a very difficult question by the great diversity of practice in such cases. The semicolon, with guillemets, or the semicolon and a dash, with the quotation marks, may sometimes be sufficient; but I see no good reason why the period should not in general be preferred to the comma, the semicolon, or the colon, where full and distinct sentences are thus recited. The foregoing passage of Scripture I have examined in five different languages, ten different translations, and seventeen different editions which happened to be at hand. In these it is found pointed in twelve different ways. In Leusden's, Griesbach's, and Aitton's Greek, it has nine colons; in Leusden's Latin from Montanus, eight; in the common French version, six; in the old Dutch, five; in our Bibles, usually one, but not always. In some books, these commandments are mostly or wholly divided by periods; in others, by colons; in others, by semicolons; in others, as above, by commas. The first four are negative, or prohibitory; the other two, positive, or mandatory. Hence some make a greater pause after the fourth, than elsewhere between any two. This greater pause is variously marked by the semicolon, the colon, or the period; and the others, at the same time, as variously, by the comma, the semicolon, or the colon. Dr. Campbell, in his Four Gospels, renders and points the latter part of this passage thus: "Jesus answered, 'Thou shalt not commit murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not give false testimony. Honour thy father and mother; and love thy neighbour as thyself." But the corresponding passage in Luke, xviii 20, he exhibits thus: "Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery; do not commit murder; do not steal; do not give false testimony; honour thy father and thy mother." This is here given as present advice, referring to the commandments, but not actually quoting them; and, in this view of the matter, semicolons, not followed by capitals may be right. See the common reading under Rule XIV for Capitals, on page 166.

OBS. 2.—Letters written for numbers, after the manner of the Romans, though read as words, are never words in themselves; nor are they, except perhaps in one or two instances, abbreviations of words. C, a hundred, comes probably from Centum; and M, a thousand, is the first letter of Mille; but the others, I, V, X, L, D, and the various combinations of them all, are direct numerical signs, as are the Arabic figures. Hence it is not really necessary that the period should be set after them, except at the end of a sentence, or where it is suitable as a sign of pause. It is, however, and always has been, a prevalent custom, to mark numbers of this kind with a period, as if they were abbreviations; as, "While pope Sixtus V. who succeeded Gregory XIII. fulminated the thunder of the church against the king of Navarre."—Smollet's Eng., iii, 82. The period is here inserted where the reading requires only the comma; and, in my opinion, the latter point should have been preferred. Sometimes, of late, we find other points set after this period; as, "Otho II., surnamed the Bloody, was son and successor of Otho I.; he died in 983."—Univ. Biog. Dict. This may be an improvement on the former practice, but double points are not generally used, even where they are proper; and, if the period is not indispensable, a simple change of the point would perhaps sooner gain the sanction of general usage.

OBS. 3.—Some writers, judging the period to be wrong or needless in such cases, omit it, and insert only such points as the reading requires; as, "For want of doing this, Judge Blackstone has, in Book IV, Chap. 17, committed some most ludicrous errors."—Cobbett's Gram., Let. XIX, ¶ 251. To insert points needlessly, is as bad a fault as to omit them when they are requisite. In Wm. Day's "Punctuation Reduced to a System," (London, 1847,) we have the following obscure and questionable RULE: "Besides denoting a grammatical pause, the full point is used to mark contractions, and is requisite after every abbreviated word, as well as after numeral letters."—Page 102. This seems to suggest that both a pause and a contraction may be denoted by the same point. But what are properly called "contractions," are marked not by the period, but by the apostrophe, which is no sign of pause; and the confounding of these with words "abbreviated," makes this rule utterly absurd. As for the period "after numeral letters," if they really needed it at all, they would need it severally, as do the abbreviations; but there are none of them, which do not uniformly dispense with it, when not final to the number; and they may as well dispense with it, in like manner, whenever they are not final to the sentence.

OBS. 4.—Of these letters, Day gives this account: "M. denotes mille, 1,000; D., dimidium mille, half a thousand, or 500; C. centum, 100; L. represents the lower half of C., and expresses 50; X. resembles V. V., the one upright, the other inverted, and signifies 10; V. stands for 5, because its sister letter U is the fifth vowel; and I. signifies 1, probably because it is the plainest and simplest letter in the alphabet."—Day's Punctuation, p. 103. There is some fancy in this. Dr. Adam says, "The letters employed for this purpose [i.e., to express numbers.] were C. I. L. V. X."—Latin and Eng. Gram., p. 288. And again: "A thousand is marked thus CI[C-reverserd], which in later times was contracted into M. Five hundred is marked thus, I[C-reversed], or by contraction, D."—Ib. Day inserts periods thus: "IV. means 4; IX., 9; XL., 40; XC., 90; CD., 400; CM., 900."—Page 703. And again: "4to., quarto, the fourth of a sheet of paper; 8vo., octavo, the eighth part of a sheet of paper; 12mo., duodecimo, the twelfth of a sheet of paper; N. L., 8°., 9'., 10''., North latitude, eight degrees, nine minutes, ten seconds."—Page 104. But IV may mean 4, without the period; 4to or 8vo has no more need of it than 4th or 8th; and N. L. 8° 9' 10'' is an expression little to be mended by commas, and not at all by additional periods.

OBS. 5.—To allow the period of abbreviation to supersede all other points wherever it occurs, as authors generally have done, is sometimes plainly objectionable; but, on the other hand, to suppose double points to be always necessary wherever abbreviations or Roman numbers have pauses less than final, would sometimes seem more nice than wise, as in the case of Biblical and other references. A concordance or a reference Bible pointed on this principle, would differ greatly from any now extant. In such references, numbers are very frequently pointed with the period, with scarcely any regard to the pauses required in the reading; as, "DIADEM, Job 29. 14. Isa. 28. 5. and 62. 3. Ezek. 21. 26."—Brown's Concordance. "Where no vision is, the people perish, Prov. xxix. 18. Acts iv. 12. Rom. x. 14."—Brown's Catechism, p. 104. "What I urge from 1. Pet. 3. 21. in my Apology."—Barclay's Works, iii, 498. "I. Kings—II. Kings."—Alger's Bible, p. iv. "Compare iii. 45. with 1. Cor. iv. 13."—Scott's Bible, Pref. to Lam. Jer. "Hen. v. A. 4. Sc. 5."—Butler's Gram., p. 41. "See Rule iii. Rem. 10."—Ib., p. 162. Some set a colon between the number of the chapter and that of the verse; which mark serves well for distinction, where both numbers are in Arabic figures: as, "'He that formed the eye, shall he not see?'—Ps. 94: 9."—Wells's Gram., p. 126. "He had only a lease-hold title to his service. Lev. 25: 39, Exod. 21: 2."—True Amer., i. 29. Others adopt the following method which seems preferable to any of the foregoing: "Isa. Iv, 3; Ezek. xviii, 20; Mic. vi, 7."—Gurney's Essays, p. 133. Churchill, who is uncommonly nice about his punctuation, writes as follows: "Luke. vi, 41, 42. See also Chap. xv, 8; and Phil., iii. 12."—New Gram., p. 353.

OBS. 6.—Arabic figures used as ordinals, or used for the numeral adverbs, first, or firstly, secondly, thirdly, &c., are very commonly pointed with the period, even where the pause required after them is less than a full stop; as, "We shall consider these words, 1. as expressing resolution; and 2. as expressing futurity."—Butler's Gram., p. 106. But the period thus followed by a small letter, has not an agreeable appearance, and some would here prefer the comma, which is, undoubtedly, better suited to the pause, A fitter practice, however, would be, to change the expression thus: "We shall consider these words, 1st, as expressing resolution; and, 2dly, as expressing futurity."

OBS. 7.—Names vulgarly shortened, then written as they are spoken, are not commonly marked with a period; as, Ben for Benjamin. "O RARE BEN JOHNSON!"—Biog. Dict.

"From whence the inference is plain,
Your friend MAT PRIOR wrote with pain."
—LLOYD: B. P., Vol. viii, p. 188.

Improprieties for Correction.

False Punctuation.—Errors Concerning the Period.

Under Rule I.—Distinct Sentences.

"The third person is the position of the name spoken of; as, Paul and Silas were imprisoned, the earth thirsts, the sun shines."—Frazee's Gram., 1st Ed., p. 21; Ster. Ed., p. 23.

[FORMULE.—Not proper, because three totally distinct sentences are here thrown together as examples, with no other distinction than what is made by two commas. But, according to Rule 1st for the Period, "When a sentence, whether long or short, is complete in respect to sense, and independent in respect to construction, it should be marked with the period." Therefore, these commas should be periods; and, of course, the first letter of each example must be a capital.]

"Two and three and four make nine; if he were here, he would assist his father and mother, for he is a dutiful son; they live together, and are happy, because they enjoy each other's society; they went to Roxbury, and tarried all night, and came back the next day."—Goldsbury's Parsing Lessons in his Manual of E. Gram., p. 64.

"We often resolve, but seldom perform; she is wiser than her sister; though he is often advised, yet he does not reform; reproof either softens or hardens its object; he is as old as his classmates, but not so learned; neither prosperity, nor adversity, has improved him; let him that standeth, take heed lest he fall; he can acquire no virtue, unless he make some sacrifices."—Ibid.

"Down from his neck, with blazing gems array'd,
Thy image, lovely Anna! hung portray'd,
Th' unconscious figure, smiling all serene,
Suspended in a golden chain was seen,"—S. Barrett's E. Gr., p. 92.

Under Rule II.—Allied Sentences.

"This life is a mere prelude to another, which has no limits, it is a little portion of duration. As death leaves us, so the day of judgment will find us."—Merchant's School Gram., p. 76.

[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the pause after limits, which is sufficient for the period, is marked only by the comma. But, according to Rule 2d, "The period is often employed between two sentences which have a general connexion, expressed by a personal pronoun, a conjunction, or a conjunctive adverb." It would improve the passage, to omit the first comma, change the second to a period, and write the pronoun it with a capital. Judgment also might be bettered with an e, and another is properly two words.]

"He went from Boston to New York; he went from Boston; he went to New York; in walking across the floor, he stumbled over a chair."—Goldsbury's Manual of E. Gram., p. 62.

"I saw him on the spot, going along the road, looking towards the house; during the heat of the day, he sat on the ground, under the shade of a tree."—Id., ib.

"George came home, I saw him yesterday, here; the word him, can extend only to the individual George"—S. Barrett's E. Gram., 10th Ed., p. 45.

"Commas are often used now, where parentheses were formerly; I cannot, however, esteem this an improvement."—See the Key.

"Thou, like a sleeping, faithless sentinel
Didst let them pass unnoticed, unimproved,
And know, for that thou slumb'rest on the guard,
Thou shalt be made to answer at the bar
For every fugitive."
—Hallock's Gram., p. 222; Enfield's Sp., p. 380.

Under Rule III.—Of Abbreviations.

"The term pronoun (Lat pronomen) strictly means a word used for, or instead of a noun."—Bullions, E. Gram., p. 198.

[FORMULE.—Not proper, because the syllable here put for the word Latin, is not marked with a period. But, according to Rule 3d, "The period is generally used after abbreviations, and very often to the exclusion of other points; but, as in this case it is not a constant sign of pause, other points may properly follow it, if the words written in full would demand them." In this instance, a period should mark the abbreviation, and a comma be set after of. By analogy, in stead is also more properly two words than one.]

"The period is also used after abbreviations; as, A. D. P. S. G. W. Johnson."—Butler's Pract. Gram., p. 211. "On this principle of classification, the later Greek grammarians divided words into eight classes or parts of speech, viz: the Article, Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Participle, Adverb, Preposition, and Conjunction."—Bullions, E. Gram., p. 191.

"'Metre is not confined to verse: there is a tune in all good prose; and Shakspeare's was a sweet one.'—Epea Pter, II, 61. Mr. H. Tooke's idea was probably just, agreeing with Aristotle's, but not accurately expressed."—Churchill's New Gram., p. 385.

"Mr. J. H. Tooke was educated at Eton and at Cambridge, in which latter college he took the degree of A. M; being intended for the established church of England, he entered into holy orders when young, and obtained the living of Brentford, near London, which he held ten or twelve years."—Div. of Purley, 1st Amer. Edition, Vol. i, p. 60.

"I, nor your plan, nor book condemn,
But why your name, and why A. M!"—Lloyd.

Mixed Examples of Error.

"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, &c. Isaiah. lviii. 7."—Butler's Gram., p. 67. "'He that hath eeris of herynge, here he. Wiclif. Matt xi."—Butler's Gram., p. 76. "See General Rules for Spelling, iii., v., and vii."—Butler's Gram., p. 81. "'False witnesses did rise up.' Ps. xxxv. ii."—Butlers Gram., p. 105.

"An explicative sentence is used for explaining. An interrogative sentence for enquiring. An imperative sentence for commanding."—S. Barrett's Prin. of Language, p. 87. "In October, corn is gathered in the field by men, who go from hill to hill with baskets, into which they put the ears; Susan labors with her needle for a livelihood; notwithstanding his poverty, he is a man of integrity."—Goldsbury's Parsing, Manual of E. Gram., p. 62.

"A word of one syllable, is called a monosyllable. A word of two syllables; a dissyllable. A word of three syllables; a trissyllable. A word of four or more syllables; a polysyllable."—Frazee's Improved Gram., 1st Ed., p. 15. "A word of one syllable, is called a monosyllable. A word of two syllables, a dissyllable. A word of three syllables, a trissyllable. A word of four or more syllables, a polysyllable."—Frazee's Improved Gram., Ster. Ed., p. 17.

"If I say, 'if it did not rain, I would take a walk;' I convey the idea that it does rain, at the time of speaking, If it rained, or did it rain, in the present time, implies, it does not rain; If it did not rain, or did it not rain, in present time, implies that it does rain; thus in this peculiarity, an affirmative sentence always implies a negation, and a negative sentence an affirmation."—Frazee's Gram., 1st Ed., p. 61; Ster. Ed., 62. "If I were loved, and, were I loved, imply, I am not loved; if I were not loved, and, were I not loved, imply, I am loved; a negative sentence implies an affirmation; and an affirmative sentence implies a negation, in these forms of the subjunctive."—Ib., Old Ed., p. 73; Ster. Ed., 72.

"What is Rule III.?"—Hart's Gram., p. 114. "How is Rule III. violated?"—Ib., p. 115. "How do you parse 'letter' in the sentence, 'James writes a letter'? Ans.—'Letter is a noun com., of the MASC. gend., in the 3d p., sing. num., and objective case, and is governed by the verb 'writes,' according to Rule III., which says. 'A transitive verb,' &c."—Ib., p. 114.

"Creation sleeps. 'T is as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end,
And let her prophecy be soon fulfilled;
Fate drop the curtain; I can lose no more."—Hallock's Gram., p. 216.