The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1918-07-29
SINS AGAINST THE HYPHEN.
4 Punctuation Mark That Is Badl,
Traated In America

4 Punctuation Mark That Is Badly
Treated In America.
The other day the Boston Herald
printed this critical paragraph: The
Summer street merchant who speaks
of fresh caught fish is commercially
careful not to reflect on the character
of those that remain in the sea"
Whereupon Sylvester Baxter, also of
Boston, wrote an Illuminating essay
on the uses of the hyhen, not the
political or racial hyphen, which is
being properly subordnated in these
days, but the indispensable. all
around. punctuational hyphen. There
is. as he says, a 'sin against the
hyphen, which has come to be a
chronic offense against good English
In newspapers and magazines Any
mark of punctuation, it may he said.
is of great Importance and should be
treated with the utmost respect by
writer's, compositions and proofread-
ers, The Introduction of casual
comma may completely alter the
meaning of a sentence. 1t is no
torious fact that an accidental semi
colon in the liquor law imposed curl
Gus restrictions upon bibulous habits
in Boston for a number OF years.
A hyphen. we are reminded, Is a
trivial little dash that is of the utmost
consequence in its effects. Yet most
persons probably use punctuation
marks of all sorts as they would use
salt and pepper--'to taste"-and the
hyphen might be compared with lib
eral dash of tobasco sauce in its al
terative effect.
The Summer street merchant" re-
ferred to in the Herald paragraph
may have been a street merchant"
but in the absence of any hyphen we
must assume that he is merchant
| of Summer street Had he been q
street. merchant it would have been
| necessary to identify him as Sum
mer street street-merchant." In the
form in which 1t was used the other
assumption would ohlige us to char
acterize him as a street merchant who
works in the summer. But capitaliz-
ing Summer obviously made the word
the title of the street and no hyphen
was necessary TO associate street"
with sunni rather than with
merchant"
But while the omission of the by
| phen was right enough in reference
| to the Summer street merchant the
! sign displayed by the latter should
| have included a hyphen. What he
! meant was fresh caught fish" instead
| of fresh caught fish" As Mr.. Baxter
| iFtftatEIN SIIiiiiUS US, q IFSSf-tduEnf
| fish is a FISH freshly caught, while
fresh caught fish is a caught-fsh that
| is fresh"
1t occurs to us. however. that this is
| a distinction without a real difference
! A fish freshly caught and caught
| fish that is fresh are practically the
same thing to the ultimate consumer
who happens to he looking for fresh
fish and whose mind is free for the
moment from worries over fnical
questions of English. While a person
of meticulous mental habit was solem-
| ly debating whether the object he was
considering was a fresh caught fish
or fresh caught fish the fish would
be steadily losing its freshness.
| 1t may be taken for granted, how
! ever. that most Bostonians have all
such academic questions straight in
their minds before they start out to
buy fish. This recognized habit of
mental precision In such matters
makes it all the more astonishing that
conVivial Bostonians should so long
| have found themselves baffled and re-
strained by a misplaced semicolon. 1t
| is difficult indeed to imagine how
semicolon could have got into a
wrong position in Boston In the first
| place And we are amazed at Mr.
Bakers statement that in the matter
OF punctuation these chronic offenses
! against good English are committed
even by the revered Atlantic Monthly
| Probably there, as in about all
printing offices, the instinct of econ
omy overpowers the rule of reason
and intelligence, That is why we gen.
orally find hyphens omitted where
they are really indispensabl BILE. why
punctuation of all sorts is curtailed
ofttimes to a degree that renders the
text uncertain in its significance If not
absolutely unintelligible. and why
lower case letters are used In cir
cumstances that logically require
capitalization. The art OF typogra ply
in some OF these respects has gone to
extremes, thus proving. perhaps, that
as a form of art II is thoroughly mod
ern.
1t is fact that in magazine articles
and stories and in the columns Of
newspapers we frequently see state
ments that are inaccurate, misleading
and even absolutely false as a result
| of misplaced or omitted punctuation.
The hyphen is particularly import
| ant utility in setting forth ideas cor
| rectly, For a few further examples,
more convincing than ''fresh-caught
| fish, we may once more quote Mr.
! Baxter.
"A rolling stone is stone that rolls:
rolllng-stone Is stone used for
rolling. An iron-man- is a man who
work on iron or who is In the iron
trade; an iron man is man made of
iron. or (flguratively) of an iron dis
position. A paper fastener Is a fast
ener made of paper paper-fastener
is something to fasten paper with
Providence Journal
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The Officer-See here, my man,
where are you going this time ~
night?
The Rookie--why--why. the boys
sent me out to get the sentry post