Power to the printers. The compositors weren’t sure how to use some of the new marks any more than their authors were, but they were in the more powerful position. There was no policy of sending proofs out to authors to check – that came a long time after. What a compositor typeset, people would read, whether it was what the author intended or not. And after a century of experience, printers were becoming more confident. During the 1580s we see evidence of them starting to replace punctuation marks in an author’s copy. It’s the beginning of a tradition of ‘printers know best’, which later evolved into ‘publishers know best’, and led to a new professionalism, in which editors and copy-editors took the primary responsibility to guarantee the production of texts that were clear and consistent, and reflected the identity of a publishing house. For the most part, authors didn’t care. Unsure of their own practice, they were happy to leave such matters as spelling, layout, and punctuation to the professionals. But not all were happy – a new generation of writers on the English language least of all.
7
Breath, blood, and spirits
During the sixteenth century, two trends emerged that would change attitudes to punctuation. One was the interest in it shown by scholarly writers on orthography, especially those who were seriously involved in the task of spelling reform. The other was a recognition by playwrights that punctuation gave actors useful guidelines about how lines were to be said, as well as sometimes providing them with an intriguing plot device.
First, spelling reform. Although punctuation wasn’t central to the task of standardizing spelling, it was seen as being affected by the same arguments that motivated the reformers – the need to develop a clear and uniform approach to the writing of English. Headteacher Richard Mulcaster, for example, devotes a whole section to punctuation in his educational guide called The Elementarie (1582). Foreigners do wonder at us, he says, ‘both for the vncertaintie in our writing, and the inconstancie in our letters’. And in a section headed Of distinction, he describes thirteen marks (he calls them characts) which help ‘the right and tunable vttering of our words and sentences’. In fact only seven of them are punctuation in its everyday sense, as he includes marks to show long and short vowel values, as well as a ‘seuering note’ (what we would now call a dieresis) separating the pronunciation of adjacent vowels.
It’s interesting to see how Mulcaster handles punctuation, as his approach is typical of later writers. It’s very much a phonetic perspective, all to do with breath and melody.
Comma: a small croked point, which in writing followeth som small branch of the sentence, & in reading warneth vs to rest there, and to help our breth a litle.
Colon: two round points one aboue another, which in writing followeth som full branch, or half the sentence.
Period: a small round point, which in writing followeth a perfit [perfect] sentence, and in reading warneth vs to rest there, and to help our breth at full.
Parenthesis: two half-circles, which in writing enclose som perfit branch, as not mere impertinent, so not fullie concident to the sentence, which it breaketh, and in reading warneth vs, that the words inclosed by them, ar to be pronounced with a lower & quikker voice, then the words either before or after them.
Interrogation: two points one aboue another, wherof the vpper is somtimes croked which both in writing & reading teacheth vs, that a question is asked there, where it is set.
He also recognizes the two functions of the hyphen, marking them differently:
A uniting line: a long stroke betwene two syllabs, whereby it is ment that those two syllabs ar parcells of one word.
The breaker: two outright strokes one vnder another in the end of a line, and giueth vs to wit, that the word which it so breaketh is parted by full syllabs, whereof som be writen in the line before: som in that which followeth.
Clearly, punctuation for Mulcaster is primarily to do with reading aloud – what would later be called a rhetorical or elocutionist approach to the subject.
At the same time as the reformers were worrying about spelling, the dramatists were beginning to produce the works that would eventually make this period a golden age of playwriting. And in what people generally regard as the first comedy of that time, we actually see punctuation becoming part of the plot. This is Nicolas Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister, written around 1550. In Act 3 Scene 4, the foolish braggart Ralph writes a love letter to a rich widow, Dame Custance. Matthew Merygreeke reads it aloud to her, but ignores the original punctuation, so that the sense is the reverse of what was intended, and Roister is rebuffed. Roister then blames the scrivener, who says it wasn’t his fault: it was the reader not following the correct punctuation.
ROYSTER: I say the letter thou madest me was not good.
SCRIUENER: Then did ye wrong copy it of likelyhood.
ROYSTER: Yes, out of thy copy worde for worde I wrote.
SCRIUENER: Then was it as ye prayed to haue it I wote [am sure],
But in reading and pointyng there was made some faulte.
There certainly was. Here are the two texts side by side. Note the length of the extract. Although there are earlier punctuation poems in English, nothing remotely resembles the scale of Udall’s composition, which puts short pieces of wordplay (such as Eats, Shoots & Leaves) very much in the shade.
Scrivener’s version
Merygreeke’s version
Sweete mistresse, where as I loue you, nothing at all
Sweete mistresse where as I loue you nothing at all,
Regarding your richesse and substance: chiefe of all
Regarding your substance and richesse chiefe of all,
For your personage, beautie, demeanour and witte
For your personage, beautie, demeanour and wit,
I commende me vnto you: Neuer a whitte
I commende me vnto you neuer a whit.
Sory to heare reporte of your good welfare.
Sorie to heare report of your good welfare.
For (as I heare say) suche your conditions are,
For (as I heare say) suche your conditions are,
That ye be worthie fauour: Of no liuing man
That ye be worthie fauour of no liuing man,
To be abhorred: of euery honest man
To be abhorred of euery honest man.
To be taken for a woman enclined to vice
To be taken for a woman enclined to vice.
Nothing at all: to vertue giuing hir due price.
Nothing at all to Vertue gyuing hir due price.
Wherfore concerning mariage, ye are thought
Wherfore concerning mariage, ye are thought
Suche a fine Paragon, as nere honest man bought.
Suche a fine Paragon, as nere honest man bought.
And nowe by these presents I doe you aduertise,
And nowe by these presentes I do you aduertise
That I am minded to marrie you: In no wyse
That I am minded to marrie you in no wise.
For your goodes and substance: I can be content
For your goodes and substance, I coulde bee content
To take you as you are: yf ye will be my wife,
To take you as ye are. If ye mynde to bee my wyfe,
Ye shall be assured for the time of my life,
Ye shall be assured for the tyme of my lyfe,
I wyll keepe you right well: from good raiment and fare,
I will keepe ye ryght well, from good rayment and fare,
Ye shall not be kept: but in sorowe and care
Ye shall not be kepte but in sorowe and care.
Ye shall in no wyse lyue: at your owne libertie,
Ye shall in no wyse lyue at your owne libertie,
Doe and say what ye lust: ye shall neuer please me
Doe and say what ye lust, ye shall neuer please me,
But when ye are merrie: I will bee all sadde
But when ye are mery, I will be all sadde,
When ye are sorie: I wyll be very gladde
When ye are sory, I will be very gladde.
When ye seeke your heartes ease: I will be vnkinde
When ye seeke your heartes ease, I will be vnkinde,
At no time: in me shall ye muche gentlenesse finde.
At no tyme, in me shall ye muche gentlenesse finde.
But all things contrary to your will and minde
But all things contrary to your will and minde,
Shall be done otherwise: I wyll not be behynde
Shall be done: otherwise I wyll not be behinde
To speake: And as for all they that woulde do you wrong,
To speake. And as for all them that woulde do you wrong
(I wyll so helpe and maintayne ye) shall not lyue long.
I will so helpe and mainteyne, ye shall not lyue long.
The ingenuity of this long passage impressed contemporary writers. Thomas Wilson, an influential writer on logic and rhetoric, uses it to illustrate ambiguity in the third edition of The Rule of Reason in 1553 – ‘an example of soche doubtful writing, whiche by reason of poincting maie haue double sense, and contrarie meaning’.
It was a clever idea, and it was repeatedly employed. Shakespeare uses it during the play-scene in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (5.1.108). Peter Quince addresses the assembled nobles with a prologue beginning:
Intended version
Quince’s version
If we offend, it is with our good will
If we offend, it is with our good will.
That you should think we come, not to offend,
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with good will to show our simple skill.
But with good will. To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end. …
That is the true beginning of our end. …
Theseus comments drily: ‘This fellow doth not stand upon points.’
The device wasn’t restricted to comedy. Towards the end of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (line 2238ff), we see Young Mortimer plotting the death of the king. He knows he has to do it cunningly, so he leaves the punctuation out of a letter, allowing the text to be read in two ways. If he’s accused, he plans to be able to say he had no part in it. The crucial unpunctuated line is: Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est. A word-by-word translation of the Latin is: ‘Edward kill don’t fear good is.’ And Mortimer explains it in this way:
Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est,
Fear not to kill the king, ’tis good he die:
But read it thus, and that’s another sense;
Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est,
Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.
Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go.
That, being dead, if it chance to be found,
Matrevis and the rest may bear the blame,
And we be quit that caus’d it to be done.
(Spoiler alert.) His plan doesn’t work out the way he hopes. The king dies, but so does he.
So, with both scholars of orthography and playwrights recognizing the role of punctuation, by the end of the sixteenth century the climate had altered, and this shows clearly in a new perspective: grammar. Grammarians had nothing to say about English punctuation in the fifteenth century for the simple reason that there were no English grammars. The first piece of writing that outlines the subject was written by a Sussex printer, William Bullokar, in 1586: a highly abbreviated treatment called Pamphlet for Grammar. It closely follows the standard Latin grammar of the time, by William Lily, with a focus on parts of speech, etymology, and spelling. Sentence construction and prosody are given very little space; and punctuation – which of course relates to these two areas – isn’t mentioned at all.
We see the new orientation in a work that comes from an unexpected quarter: Ben Jonson’s English Grammar, written sometime in the early 1600s. Who would have thought a dramatist would write an English grammar? But this was a special interest of Jonson’s, who collected as many grammars of languages as he could find. In fact what has come down to us is an abbreviated version. The original full text was destroyed in a house fire in 1623.
At the end of his opening chapter Jonson vividly identifies the central role of punctuation in language:
Prosody, and orthography, are not parts of grammar, but diffused like the blood and spirits throughout the whole.
Orthography for him is ‘right writing’. And after talking about syntax he develops the metaphor:
All the parts of Syntax have already been declared. There resteth one general affection of the whole, dispersed thorough every member thereof, as the blood is thorough the body; and consisteth in the breathing, when we pronounce any sentence. For, whereas our breath is by nature so short, that we cannot continue without a stay to speak long together; it was thought necessary as well for the speaker’s ease, as for the plainer deliverance of the things spoken, to invent this means, whereby men pausing a pretty while, the whole speech might never the worse be understood.
He goes on to describe the use of punctuation to mark these breathings: a comma (‘a mean breathing’), a semicolon (‘somewhat a longer breath’), a parenthesis (equivalent to a pair of commas), a colon (‘two pricks’, which he calls a pause), a period, an interrogation (?), and an admiration (!). An enthusiast for the new practices being used in Europe, he also devotes a separate chapter to the apostrophus, ‘an affection of words coupled and joined together’.
Jonson is very concerned that people don’t always get punctuation right, and he knows who to blame:
Apostrophus is the rejecting of a vowel from the beginning or ending of a word. The note whereof, though it many times, through the negligence of writers and printers, is quite omitted, yet by right should, and of the learneder sort hath his sign and mark, which is such a semi-circle (‘) placed in the top.
Writers don’t care about it; nor do the printers.
The ‘negligence’ of printers. I have some sympathy for the poor compositors who had the responsibility of typesetting Jonson’s works for the impressive 1616 Folio edition, which is heavily punctuated. He was always breathing down their necks, calling in at the printing-house most days and correcting as many errors as he could. ‘Negligence’ is actually quite mild compared with the falling-out Jonson had with a later printer when too ill to make routine calls to the printing-house. In a letter written in 1631 to the Earl of Newcastle, he calls John Beale a ‘lewd printer’ and an ‘absolute knave’, and observes: ‘My printer and I shall afford subject enough for a tragicomedy, for with his delays and vexations I am almost become blind.’
Doubtless many of these vexations would have been because printers failed to respect Jonson’s preference for heavy punctuation, reflecting the value he placed on it as a reader of scholarly texts as well as plays. He even inserted a colon between the two parts of his signature, Ben:Jonson – a practice common enough among scholars of the time when they abbreviated their first names. And in a short poem called ‘To Groome Ideot’, he tells someone off for reading his verse badly:
For offring, with thy smiles, my wit to grace,
Thy ignorance still laughs in the wrong place.
And so my sharpnesse thou no lesse dis-ioynts,
Than thou didst late my sense, loosing my points.
The last line: you obstructed the sense by not attending to the punctuation. Poor Groome, who not only reads Jonson’s lines badly, but listens to it badly too, by laughing in the wrong place.
Jonson is unique in being both playwright and grammarian – and moreover one with a solid scholarly background, who knew about current humanist trends in mainland Europe as well as the role of punctuation in antiquity. He is the first in a series of seventeenth-century writers who took the subject very seriously, and saw it within the context of grammar. Not that the writers all agreed about how to punctuate. On the contrary. Jonson has an illuminating paragraph in his series of short observations (we would today
call them blog posts) published in 1641 after his death under the heading Timber: or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter:
What a sight it is to see writers committed together by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, points, colons, commas, hyphens, and the like? fighting as for their fires and their altars; and angry that now are frighted at their noises, and loud brayings under their asses skins.
Strong stuff. No wonder he fell out with his printers.
Printers would not have been used to such a combination of learning and temperament from a playwright. The printing industry was still quite small in the early 1600s. The book trade was concentrating on serious material, especially Bibles and other religious works. Plays were the least in the publishing kingdom. They were sporadic: less than a fifth of all plays were printed in the decades around 1600. They attracted small print runs, and made booksellers little profit. The playwright’s world was also seen as a dangerous place, with theatres excluded from certain localities in London, and the content of plays viewed with suspicion on moral, religious, or political grounds. Thomas Bodley famously banned what he called ‘riff-raff’ books – including cheap quarto play editions – from his Oxford library. The number of presses and master printers was tightly controlled by the Stationers Company and by ordinances issued by the Star Chamber, and printers had to cope with far bigger issues than punctuation.
Making a Point Page 5