Commas, Common Sense and Justice

Like language itself, punctuation is always in a state of flux.

If you are of a certain age, notice how you are likely using exclamation points more lately. It has become a mark of agreeability in a way that would mystify a time traveler from as recently as a couple decades ago. “See you in a bit!” “I looked for you yesterday but you weren’t there!” I now email like that.

This is part of a long story Florence Hazrat tells in “On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World,” due out in August. Hazrat takes us from when writing had no punctuation at all, through when it was invented largely as a guide to reading out loud, to today’s proliferation of marks like hashtags and emojis.

It’s a roller coaster of a story. Ancient........

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