Inside the Little Plastic Castle

Making a Point: The Persnickety Story of English Punctuation

David Crystal

Published in US & UK in regular print and ebook
NLS downloadable audio DB 84113
braille in progress

This is the BEST book about English punctuation, where we have both rules and uncountable exceptions. Crystal is a linguist, historian and deft writer. He starts with the first English manuscripts, which didn’t even have word spaces. He then proceeds through every century, touching on “general practice” for the authors, editors, typesetters, printers and teachers. That last lot are a prescriptive bunch, although their diktats often clash.

He examines the full span of written, printed and typed English. He claims that periods carry a different emotional weight in text messages. He’s not quite sure what the digital natives mean by the swung-dash (~) character, but he recognizes it’s on the rise.

Read if … You’re eager to know the scores of punctuation marks that people introduced but never caught on.

Avoid if … You want the world to use your punctuation rules.