Those of you who sometimes follow me over to The Editing Room know that’s where I usually wax rhapsodic about things like punctuation, the mysteries of prepositional usage, and subjunctive mood. But this little gem, borrowed from the marvelous Lynn Truss book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, belongs here. Ms. Truss seems to suggest that once again we have theater to thank for western civilization:
The earliest known punctuation – credited to Aristophanes of Byzantium (librarian at Alexandria) around 200 BC – was a three-part system of dramatic notation (involving single points at different heights on the line) advising actors when to breathe in preparation for a long bit, or not-so-long bit, or a relatively short bit.
To illustrate this post, I wanted to show you some especially flagrant thespianism, but the image in question was too large to upload. So allow me to redirect you.
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