Why We Punctuate William Livingston Klein Author

PREFACEThe first edition of this work was published in 1896, and the treatment of the subject was so highly commended by many leading men and periodicals of the country that the entire edition, though a large one, was soon exhausted. In spite of this favorable commendation, which may have been due to my effort to set forth reasons, instead of rules, for the use of marks, I had a keen sense of certain shortcomings in the work, and have long been unwilling to permit its reprinting or to undertake its rewriting. At least one of the reasonsâ and I hope the principal oneâ why the work fell short of my ideal of the book needed, was the inevitable failure inherent in the mode of treating the subject. As a sentence may contain the four principal marks (comma, semicolon, colon, and period) and, in addition, one or more of the other marks, a writer courts failure if, in treating the difficult art of punctuation, he deals with the marks separately, beginning, as all writers, myself included, have hitherto done, with the comma, the most difficult mark to understand, and proceeding, one at a time, with the other marks. Failure follows this mode of treatment because it disregards the interrelation of marks and the relations between groups of words to be interpreted by marks.