“STOPS”

OR, HOW TO PUNCTUATE

A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK

FOR WRITERS AND STUDENTS

By PAUL ALLARDYCE

—Chaucer—Romaunt of the Rose

LONDON

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.

ADELPHI TERRACE

Eighteenth Impression
1895

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The Use of Punctuation.—Punctuation is a device for marking out the arrangement of a writer's ideas. Reading is thereby made easier than it otherwise would be.

A writer's ideas are expressed by a number of words arranged in groups, the words in one group being more closely connected with one another than they are with those in the next group. An example will show this grouping in its simplest form:

He never convinces the reason, or fills the imagination, or touches the heart.

To understand what is written, the reader must group the words together in the way intended by the writer; and in doing this he can receive assistance in various ways. Partly by the inflection of the words; partly by their arrangement; partly also by punctuation. As to inflection, we see in Latin an adjective and a substantive standing together, yet differing in gender, in number, or in case; and we know that the adjective does not qualify the substantive. But English has not the numerous inflections of Latin. More scrupulous care therefore is needed in the arrangement of words in