Hyphen Confusion – Or Should That Be Hyphen-Confusion?
Hyphen Confusion (or should that be ‘hyphen-confusion’?) Double-barelled names are becoming more and more current as society gets used to women not changing their last names upon getting married, but double-barelling it with their husband’s (sometimes, rarely, joined by those very husbands!), or passing their maiden name on to their double-barelled children. Not even speaking of […]
The Early Modern What-d’ye-call-it Hyphen, Part 2
In a previous post, I wrote about how we are using fewer and fewer hyphens these days. But going back in time does not mean returning to a hyphenated (literary) world either! Lately, I was playing around with some Renaissance manuscripts in the Bodleian library in Oxford, and discovered some curious punctuation habits (including hyphenation) by one prolific […]
Hear ye, hear ye, Greengrocer’s, breathe a sigh of relief
hear ye, hear ye, Greengrocer’s, breathe a sigh of relief August saw a lot of things the world did not need, such as anti-corona-mask protests everywhere, the Trumpian banshee Kimberley Guilfoyle screaming her head off about the best which was yet to come, and her husband’s self-published 29,99 dollar book on the apocalyptic plans of commie candidate […]
Penis Punctuation
penis punctuation Just a nun, picking some penis for lunch. Yes, yes, I know. The title is click-baity to get people reading. But it’s true. There is phallic-based punctuation. I mean, a mark looking like a penis, and deliberately being called so. But let’s begin at the beginning. In classical times, there was no such thing as […]
Crassly Stupid: Welcome to the World of Grammar (and Rhetoric)
crassly stupid: welcome to the world of grammar (and rhetoric) A while ago, at the end of May or beginning of June, I wrote an encyclopedia entry on the role of punctuation in literature (and not a cameo appearance at that!), and was thrown back to the basics – or so I thought: the basics […]
Still Library Isolated: Another Punctuation Book Review
still library isolated: another punctuation book review Libraries are open now, that is, you can go pick up pre-ordered books. I live a little out of town, so I’m just getting my long list ready, and when the day comes to cycle a few tens of kilometres and I pick up my darlings…I shall be […]
The McLuhan Galaxy: Punctuation as Massage
the mcluhan galaxy: punctuation as massage Last week, I was thinking about punctuation that is authorial and punctution that is editorial, trying to argue that the former does not necessarily take precedent over the latter in the understanding and appreciation of a literary piece of work. This led me to re-read McKenzie’s lectures on the sociology of […]
‘A sad hand at your punctuation’: If writer’s don’t care, why should we?
‘A sad hand at your punctuation’: if writers don’t care, why should we? When I lived in Scotland while doing my PhD, I once threw a 90s music party for which people were asked to come dressed in what that era requires: garish make-up, pigtails, baggy shirts, large loud patterns. My flatmates didn’t believe it […]
Back to Basics: What is Punctuation?
back to basics: what is punctuation? I’ve been working on an encyclopaedia entry on punctuation in literature in the past couple of days, and it’s been a lot of fun, thinking about – well, so many things: With punctuation, you need to unpick its relationship between rhetoric and grammar, that it has a perpetual foot in […]
Nelson Mandela the Dildo Collector? The Importance of Proper Listing
It’s funny how we can get hung up on (seemingly?) small things: I often hear language isn’t logical, and one shouldn’t stand on points, in the sense of punctuation points. And yet, all those school kids getting points, in the sense of marks, off because they forgot one. Point of punctuation, that is. And I […]