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Quiz about English Enslaved The History of Punctuation
Quiz about English Enslaved The History of Punctuation

English Enslaved? The History of Punctuation Quiz


Did English words once roam free and unfettered, unrestrained by marks diacritical? Does punctuation buy clarity at the expense of freedom of expression? This quiz examines what you know about the controversial history of punctuation.

A multiple-choice quiz by uglybird. Estimated time: 7 mins.
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Author
uglybird
Time
7 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
195,761
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Tough
Avg Score
5 / 10
Plays
2685
Awards
Top 10% Quiz
Last 3 plays: tuttufrutti57 (6/10), PrairieRose78 (3/10), bradez (4/10).
Question 1 of 10
1. Because English punctuation, like English vocabulary, derived in part from other languages, we must first consider the languages of antiquity. In 196 BC, a pharaoh's decree was inscribed on what became known as the Rosetta stone. The decree was recorded in the scripts of three different languages, including hieroglyphics and Greek. Which of the following correctly reflects the punctuation used on the Greek portion of the Rosetta stone? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Although Aristophanes (c.257-180 BC), librarian of Alexandria, introduced the use of points (dots) to indicate different lengths of pauses in speech, his system did not come into wide use in the Greco-Roman era. However, punctuation marks that ultimately derived from his points are still in use today. Which of Aristophanes' punctuation points called for the longest pause? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. "What need we any spur but our own cause to prick us to redress?" - Brutus in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar".

Although the practice became less common as Greek culture and methods became more entrenched, ancient Romans sometimes placed a small prick mark between words to separate them. What · was · the · name · for · this · mark?
Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. During medieval times, there were two punctuation "marks", spaces and points (dots). Spaces came to be used consistently to separate words. Points were used to indicate pauses. What determined the length of the pause? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. During the Renaissance, in the 13th century, the printer Aldus Manutius set a standard by consistently using a period for a full stop and a slash to indicated a brief pause. Over time this slash shortened, migrated down and finally curled to become our modern comma. What term was used for the mark during the Renaissance? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. It was during the Renaissance that a potentially subversive change in the purpose of punctuation occurred. Before that time, punctuation primarily signaled pauses for the purpose of elocution. But with the Renaissance, punctuation began to be used syntactically. Which of the following are syntactical aspects of punctuation use? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Although English writers used punctuation, they seemed to resist using the new fangled diacritical marks to clarify meaning or to delineate sentence structure. According to the 'Encyclopedia Britannica', "By the end of the 16th century writers of English were using most of the marks described by the younger Aldo in 1566; but their purpose was elocutionary, not syntactical." Which Elizabethan English author does the 'Encyclopedia Britannica' credit with first advocating syntactical punctuation in England? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. Although punctuation demonstrably improves clarity and facilitates written communication, not all authors have embraced it. Consider the case of 18th century author Timothy Dexter whose book "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones" contained nary a jot nor tittle diacritical. What was Dexter's response to readers demanding that he amend his book? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. Our exclamation point derives from the Latin word "io". The initial form of the exclamation mark was an upper case "I" placed atop a lower case "o". Which of the following words translates the Latin word "io"? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. What will be the future of punctuation? New marks continue to be invented and the old punctuation marks used in new and creative ways :-). However, could it be that we will one day need a license to use the newest and most fashionable punctuation marks? Which of the following newer punctuation marks is not patented? Hint



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Most Recent Scores
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Score Distribution

quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Because English punctuation, like English vocabulary, derived in part from other languages, we must first consider the languages of antiquity. In 196 BC, a pharaoh's decree was inscribed on what became known as the Rosetta stone. The decree was recorded in the scripts of three different languages, including hieroglyphics and Greek. Which of the following correctly reflects the punctuation used on the Greek portion of the Rosetta stone?

Answer: DIDENGLISHWORDSONCEROAMFREEUNRESTRAINEDBYPUNCTUATION

Ancient Greek writing contained no punctuation, not even spaces to signal the end of words. All letters were capitals. The most ancient Greek inscriptions utilize boustrophedon: alternating the reading direction of the lines, first left to right then right to left. The ability to correctly insert pauses and accents was considered to be part of the craft of reading.
2. Although Aristophanes (c.257-180 BC), librarian of Alexandria, introduced the use of points (dots) to indicate different lengths of pauses in speech, his system did not come into wide use in the Greco-Roman era. However, punctuation marks that ultimately derived from his points are still in use today. Which of Aristophanes' punctuation points called for the longest pause?

Answer: Periodos

The word "peri-odos", literally "around the path", denoted a circuit. The longest pause followed the completion of the circuit. The word "kolon" designated a limb but also a metrical unit of verse. A kolon called for a pause of intermediate length. The noun "Komma" was derived from the verb "koptein" meaning to cut off. The "cut off" piece called for the shortest pause.

Aristophanes of Byzantium was not related to Aristophanes, the noteworthy 5th century BC playwright.
3. "What need we any spur but our own cause to prick us to redress?" - Brutus in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". Although the practice became less common as Greek culture and methods became more entrenched, ancient Romans sometimes placed a small prick mark between words to separate them. What · was · the · name · for · this · mark?

Answer: Interpunct

The word "punctuation" derives from "punctum" meaning a small indentation or prick. Interpuncts were the prick marks placed between words. The use of interpuncts became increasingly less common and more haphazard in later Latin writing. This is attributed to the increasing popularity of "scriptio continua", writing without separations between words, patterned after Greek. Although spaces are not generally placed between words, some of the tablets recovered from the Roman fort Vindolanda in northern England evidence words separated by spaces.

The ancient Greeks used a horizontal line, the paragraphos, to separate sections of text. The pilcrow is a symbol used in medieval times to indicate the start of a new thought. The pilcrow has become a modern symbol to denote paragraphs and is used as a control character in Microsoft Word. Strangely, the word "pilcrow" is not included in Microsoft Word's dictionary. A caesuras is an audible pause in a line of verse.
4. During medieval times, there were two punctuation "marks", spaces and points (dots). Spaces came to be used consistently to separate words. Points were used to indicate pauses. What determined the length of the pause?

Answer: The elevation (height) of the point relative to nearby letters

It was the height of the point that signaled the length of the pause.

In the 4th century AD, Donatus revived Aristophanes' point system. Since these original punctuation marks were points, the process of placing them was called "pointing". As the point's function was more to assist in the reading of the text than to clarify meaning, it's not surprising that points are found more frequently in manuscripts that would have been most frequently read, namely liturgical manuscripts. The school that Alcuin of York established at Charlemagne's request in the 8th century is credited with indoctrinating scribes to more consistently point their manuscripts.
5. During the Renaissance, in the 13th century, the printer Aldus Manutius set a standard by consistently using a period for a full stop and a slash to indicated a brief pause. Over time this slash shortened, migrated down and finally curled to become our modern comma. What term was used for the mark during the Renaissance?

Answer: Virgula suspensiva

The Virgula suspensiva, literally "small twig or rod hanging" evolved into our modern comma in function as well as name. The punctus interrogativus was used beginning in the 8th century AD. It consisted of a period (full stop) topped by a squiggle and cued an upward inflection in voice to signal a question.

It is speculated that the punctus interrogativus was little used because questions could be easily recognized from the syntax. The punctus interrogativus went entirely out of use and our modern question mark was developed independently.

The punctus versus looked like a small seven over a period and was used to mark the end of a sentence. The caesuras is discussed above.
6. It was during the Renaissance that a potentially subversive change in the purpose of punctuation occurred. Before that time, punctuation primarily signaled pauses for the purpose of elocution. But with the Renaissance, punctuation began to be used syntactically. Which of the following are syntactical aspects of punctuation use?

Answer: All of these

Punctuation was first and foremost a means to facilitate reading written words. However, the utility of punctuation marks for clarifying meaning and sentence structure began to be appreciated. With the advent of the printing press came the production of increasing numbers of books intended to be read silently to oneself.

It also became desirable to standardize the marks used. The handwriting, that is to say the printing, was on the wall. It was only a matter of time before authors would be hounded into adhering to arbitrary standards for dots and "little twigs" before printers would consider their manuscripts suitable for publication.
7. Although English writers used punctuation, they seemed to resist using the new fangled diacritical marks to clarify meaning or to delineate sentence structure. According to the 'Encyclopedia Britannica', "By the end of the 16th century writers of English were using most of the marks described by the younger Aldo in 1566; but their purpose was elocutionary, not syntactical." Which Elizabethan English author does the 'Encyclopedia Britannica' credit with first advocating syntactical punctuation in England?

Answer: Ben Jonson

(Warning: Although the factual information contained in this interesting information section is accurate, the quiz maker's tongue is currently in his cheek.) With publication of his book "English Grammar", Ben Jonson became the first prominent English writer to embrace syntactical punctuation use, albeit posthumously. It is, perhaps, suspicious that it was not published until 23 years after being written and after Mr. Jonson had left this mortal coil. Francis Bacon did write "Essayes" utilizing syntactical punctuation. Shakespeare's use of enjambment, the continuation of a sentence onto the next line with an expected pause, was innovative; but the Bard confined his use of punctuation to an elocutionary purpose.

The havoc Jonson wrought on our till then, as yet, unenslaved English language can be seen in the sentence he wrote to justify his calumnious knavery. Jonson writes: "For, whereas our breath is by nature so short, that we cannot continue without a stay to speake long together; it was thought necessarie, as well as for the speakers ease, as for the plainer deliverance of the things spoken, to invent this meanes, whereby men pausing a pretty while, the whole speech might never the worse be understood."

Is it any wonder that we are now coerced into commas, that editors' avarice for apostrophes afflicts us, that we are inundated with en-dashes, that we are hell-hounded with hyphens; are we not even surfeited with semi-colons? To paraphrase the immortal Bard, "If you punct me, do I not bleed?"

Source of Ben Jonson facts: Punctuation in English since 1600
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Resources/essays/punctuation_hist.html
[Tuesday, 16-Nov-2004 10:21:43 EST]
Edited by: wilkins@mps.ohio-state.edu on Saturday, 27-Mar-1999 18:15:52 EST
8. Although punctuation demonstrably improves clarity and facilitates written communication, not all authors have embraced it. Consider the case of 18th century author Timothy Dexter whose book "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones" contained nary a jot nor tittle diacritical. What was Dexter's response to readers demanding that he amend his book?

Answer: Dexter added a page of punctuation marks and suggested his readers scatter them as they wished.

Timothy Dexter was a New England merchant who made a fortune buying certificates of indebtedness during the American War of Independence. His 24-page pamphlet "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones" featured creative spelling in addition to an absence of punctuation.

His first edition sold out and he included a page of punctuation for disgruntled readers in his second edition along with the following instructions, "fourder mister printer the Nowing ones complane of my book the fust edition had no stops I put in A nuf here and thay may peper and solt it as they please". Even a fourth edition of this little gem, published more than 40 years after the first edition, is now selling for over $200 American dollars.
9. Our exclamation point derives from the Latin word "io". The initial form of the exclamation mark was an upper case "I" placed atop a lower case "o". Which of the following words translates the Latin word "io"?

Answer: Joy

Not only the exclamation point but also quotation marks, the apostrophe, the question mark, and the dash were added in the 17th and 18th centuries. A profusion of rules of usage followed in the wake of these additions. Some divergence of usage among English speaking nations was inevitable. FunTrivia embraces the diversity, permitting both American and British usage (and I presume Commonwealth usage as well). Thus, an American like myself can take advantage of the more sensible British usage regarding quotation marks while retaining my Americanized spelling.

Although the Latin "io" means joy, there is also an Io of myth. Jupiter changed Io into a cow to keep his wife Juno from catching him in a compromising position. Although Io did eventually return to human form to become the first Queen of Egypt, perhaps the "holy cow" answer could be considered to have some merit.
10. What will be the future of punctuation? New marks continue to be invented and the old punctuation marks used in new and creative ways :-). However, could it be that we will one day need a license to use the newest and most fashionable punctuation marks? Which of the following newer punctuation marks is not patented?

Answer: Interrobang

The interrobang combines a question mark and exclamation point to avoid the necessity of ending sentences with "?!". The question comma and exclamation comma combine the question mark and exclamation point respectively with a comma. They received a patent in 2004.

The website "Despair.com" has a humorous parody in which they claim trademark rights for the "frownie" :-( . Or is it a parody?!
Source: Author uglybird

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor fringe before going online.
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