標點簡史
快樂學堂
作者：by Richard Nordquist
“My attitude[態度] toward punctuation[標點符號] is that it ought to be as conventional[常規的] as possible…You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than[比……好得多] anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license[許可證] to bring in your own improvements[增加的部分].” （Ernest Hemingway， letter to Horace Liveright， May 22nd， 1925）
Hemingway’s attitude toward punctuation sounds eminently[突出地] sensible[明智的]： make sure that you know the rules before you break them. Sensible， maybe， but not entirely satisfactory[令人滿意的]. After all， just who made up these rules （or conventions[慣例]） in the first place？
Join us as we look for answers in this brief history of punctuation.
Breathing Room
The beginnings of punctuation lie in classical rhetoric[修辭學]—the art of oratory[雄辯，演講術]. Back in ancient Greece and Rome， when a speech was prepared in writing， marks were used to indicate[指出] where—and for how long—a speaker should pause[暫停].
“我對標點符號的態度是它應該盡可能地常規化……在有資格自由增加標點符號之前，你應當展示出你可以比其他人運用（標點）常規工具要好得多的能力。”（歐內斯特·海明威，給霍勒斯·利夫萊特的信，1925年5月22日）
海明威對標點符號的態度聽起來非常明智：在打破規則之前確信你了解它們。明智，也許吧，但並不完全令人滿意。歸根結底，誰才是第一個編造這些規則（或慣例）的人呢？
讓我們一起在追溯標點簡史中尋找答案吧！
呼吸空間
標點符號起源於古典修辭學——演講的藝術。回溯到古希臘和古羅馬時代，當一個演講者在寫稿的準備階段，人們會用記號來標示演講者該在哪裏停頓、該停頓多久。
These pauses were named after the sections they divided. The longest section was called a period， defined[定義] by Aristotle as “a portion[部分] of a speech that has in itself a beginning and an end.”The shortest pause was a comma （literally[字麵上地]，“that which is cut off[切斷]”）， and midway between the two was the colon[冒號]—a “limb[分枝]，” “strophe[詩節]，” or“clause.”
Marking the Beat[節拍]
The three marked pauses were sometimes graded in a geometric progression[等比級數]， with one “beat” for a comma， two for a colon， and four for a period. As W. F. Bolton observes in A Living Language （1988）， “such marks in oratorical[演說家的]‘scripts[手稿]’ began as physical necessities but needed to coincide with[與……一致] the ‘phrasing[措辭]’ of the piece， the demands of emphasis[重音]， and other nuances[細微差別] of elocution[演說術].”
Almost Pointless[無意義的]
Until the introduction of printing in the late 15th century， punctuation in English was decidedly[毫無疑問地] unsystematic[無係統的] and at times virtually[幾乎] absent[缺少的]. Many of Chaucer’s注1 manuscripts[手稿]， for instance， were punctuated with nothing more than periods at the end of verse[詩節] lines， without regard for syntax[語法] or sense.