—Measure for Measure, IV, 2.
And to what but the care taken by a printer to make his forms "register" can we attribute the use of that word in Anthony and Cleopatra, Act IV. Scene 9.
"But let the world rank me in register—
A master leaver and a fugitive."
Punctuation is a fruitful source of misunderstanding between an author and his printer. Very few authors punctuate their manuscript as they would wish to see it in the print, and fewer yet are apt to be good natured and satisfied when the printer punctuates for them. William Shakespeare may have remembered this when he wrote:
"Wherefore stand you on nice points?"
—3 Henry VI, iv, 7.
"Stand a comma 'tween their amities."
—Hamlet, V, 2.
"My point and period,... ill or well."