Uncovering the Secret Life of Punctuation with Keith Houston
This month, Keith Houston guides us through the fascinating and often overlooked history of punctuation. His blog, Shady Characters, and the book of the same name, Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, delve into the origins and uses of the marks that bring clarity and nuance to our written language. Discover the intriguing journey of these symbols and the expert shedding light on their hidden stories.
Keith Houston, author of Shady Characters, discusses the secret life of punctuation.
From Software to Symbols: Houston’s Typographic Path
Keith Houston’s transition from working on medical visualization software to becoming an expert on punctuation history might seem unusual, but it began with a simple website redesign project. Following recommendations from colleagues, he immersed himself in foundational texts like Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style and Eric Gill’s An Essay on Typography. It was within these pages, particularly the glossary in Bringhurst’s book and Gill’s frequent use of the pilcrow (¶), that the seed for Shady Characters was planted. Houston realized there was a wealth of underused, marginalized, or misunderstood punctuation marks, sparking an immediate passion for researching and writing about their rich histories.
Astonishing Tales from Punctuation History
While researching his book, Houston uncovered numerous surprising stories hidden within the history of punctuation.
The Rise and Fall of the Interrobang
Among the most captivating narratives is that of the interrobang (‽). This unique mark, combining a question mark and an exclamation mark, was designed to convey a surprised or rhetorical question. Its tenacious survival, evident even in modern digital keyboards and web browsers, is remarkable. Invented in the early 1960s by advertising executive Martin K. Speckter, the interrobang gained surprising traction after being featured in magazine articles penned by Speckter himself. It found its way into the Americana typeface and even appeared on the keyboards of specific Remington Rand and Smith-Corona typewriters. Speckter successfully introduced a new punctuation mark that could be written, typed, and printed. Although now considered a “cult” mark, its journey is a testament to innovation in typography. Houston had the memorable experience of meeting Martin’s widow, Penny, a highlight of his research, where they spent hours discussing punctuation and typography.
Technology’s Mark: Shaping Punctuation’s Destiny
Technological advancements have profoundly influenced the evolution and survival of punctuation marks. The printing press, for instance, played a role in the decline of certain symbols. The pilcrow is a prime example; scribes traditionally left space for these marks to be added later in coloured ink. However, the speed of printing often precluded this decorative step, leading to the pilcrow’s disappearance and the adoption of the paragraph indent as a navigational substitute.
However, Houston argues that the typewriter had a far more detrimental impact on punctuation diversity. Early typewriter keyboards often lacked essential marks like the exclamation point, forcing typists to create makeshift versions (period + backspace + apostrophe). More significantly, various dashes (em, en, figure, quotation) and the hyphen were condensed into a single “hyphen-minus” key, a simplification that persists on modern computer keyboards. The typewriter’s monospaced lettering also led to the practice of typing two spaces after a sentence, a habit many still maintain despite its redundancy in proportional digital fonts.
Conversely, computers offer a chance to reclaim the typographic richness of the printing press era. Virtually any character, no matter how obscure, is accessible, even if it requires some digital dexterity. Furthermore, the tools to invent entirely new characters or punctuation marks are readily available, presenting opportunities for typographic expression that earlier technologies only hinted at.
Defining the Margins: Proofreaders’ Marks and New Symbols
When asked about proofreaders’ marks, Houston positions them not as punctuation itself, but as a meta-language. These symbols convey instructions about the text, indicating discrepancies between the current state and the desired state. Like patches applied to code, they serve a temporary corrective function and disappear once the changes are implemented.
Looking towards the future, Houston expresses a fondness for the interrobang and hopes for its resurgence. Beyond reviving historical marks, he sees potential value in a well-designed irony mark for modern electronic communication, where nuance can be easily lost in brief exchanges. He highlights the ironieteken, created by Bas Jacobs of the European type foundry Underware, as a promising candidate. Resembling a zig-zag exclamation mark, it has been designed to integrate seamlessly with existing typefaces.
Houston’s Toolkit: Essential Language Resources
For ongoing inspiration and research, Houston relies on several key resources. He follows blogs such as Stan Carey’s Sentence First, UPenn’s Language Log, and Mark Forsyth’s The Inky Fool. His primary online research tool is Google Books, complemented by physical resources accessed at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, which also provides access to the academic journal archive JSTOR and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). While acknowledging its potential inconsistencies, Houston finds Wikipedia valuable for exploring new areas and uncovering useful information nuggets.
For core reference, he frequently consults Robert Bringhurst’s Elements of Typographic Style, M. B. Parkes’ Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West, and G. A. Glaister’s Encyclopedia of the Book. And, naturally, The Chicago Manual of Style remains an indispensable guide during the writing process.
Keith Houston continues to explore the fascinating world of symbols from his home in Edinburgh, Scotland, sharing his discoveries through the Shady Characters blog.
