OBS. 4.—Of these letters, Day gives this account: "M. denotes mille, 1,000; D., dimidium mille, half a thousand, or 500; C. centum, 100; L. represents the lower half of C., and expresses 50; X. resembles V. V., the one upright, the other inverted, and signifies 10; V. stands for 5, because its sister letter U is the fifth vowel; and I. signifies 1, probably because it is the plainest and simplest letter in the alphabet."—Day's Punctuation, p. 103. There is some fancy in this. Dr. Adam says, "The letters employed for this purpose [i.e., to express numbers.] were C. I. L. V. X."—Latin and Eng. Gram., p. 288. And again: "A thousand is marked thus CI[C-reverserd], which in later times was contracted into M. Five hundred is marked thus, I[C-reversed], or by contraction, D."—Ib. Day inserts periods thus: "IV. means 4; IX., 9; XL., 40; XC., 90; CD., 400; CM., 900."—Page 703. And again: "4to., quarto, the fourth of a sheet of paper; 8vo., octavo, the eighth part of a sheet of paper; 12mo., duodecimo, the twelfth of a sheet of paper; N. L., 8°., 9'., 10''., North latitude, eight degrees, nine minutes, ten seconds."—Page 104. But IV may mean 4, without the period; 4to or 8vo has no more need of it than 4th or 8th; and N. L. 8° 9' 10'' is an expression little to be mended by commas, and not at all by additional periods.
OBS. 5.—To allow the period of abbreviation to supersede all other points wherever it occurs, as authors generally have done, is sometimes plainly objectionable; but, on the other hand, to suppose double points to be always necessary wherever abbreviations or Roman numbers have pauses less than final, would sometimes seem more nice than wise, as in the case of Biblical and other references. A concordance or a reference Bible pointed on this principle, would differ greatly from any now extant. In such references, numbers are very frequently pointed with the period, with scarcely any regard to the pauses required in the reading; as, "DIADEM, Job 29. 14. Isa. 28. 5. and 62. 3. Ezek. 21. 26."—Brown's Concordance. "Where no vision is, the people perish, Prov. xxix. 18. Acts iv. 12. Rom. x. 14."—Brown's Catechism, p. 104. "What I urge from 1. Pet. 3. 21. in my Apology."—Barclay's Works, iii, 498. "I. Kings—II. Kings."—Alger's Bible, p. iv. "Compare iii. 45. with 1. Cor. iv. 13."—Scott's Bible, Pref. to Lam. Jer. "Hen. v. A. 4. Sc. 5."—Butler's Gram., p. 41. "See Rule iii. Rem. 10."—Ib., p. 162. Some set a colon between the number of the chapter and that of the verse; which mark serves well for distinction, where both numbers are in Arabic figures: as, "'He that formed the eye, shall he not see?'—Ps. 94: 9."—Wells's Gram., p. 126. "He had only a lease-hold title to his service. Lev. 25: 39, Exod. 21: 2."—True Amer., i. 29. Others adopt the following method which seems preferable to any of the foregoing: "Isa. Iv, 3; Ezek. xviii, 20; Mic. vi, 7."—Gurney's Essays, p. 133. Churchill, who is uncommonly nice about his punctuation, writes as follows: "Luke. vi, 41, 42. See also Chap. xv, 8; and Phil., iii. 12."—New Gram., p. 353.
OBS. 6.—Arabic figures used as ordinals, or used for the numeral adverbs, first, or firstly, secondly, thirdly, &c., are very commonly pointed with the period, even where the pause required after them is less than a full stop; as, "We shall consider these words, 1. as expressing resolution; and 2. as expressing futurity."—Butler's Gram., p. 106. But the period thus followed by a small letter, has not an agreeable appearance, and some would here prefer the comma, which is, undoubtedly, better suited to the pause, A fitter practice, however, would be, to change the expression thus: "We shall consider these words, 1st, as expressing resolution; and, 2dly, as expressing futurity."
OBS. 7.—Names vulgarly shortened, then written as they are spoken, are not commonly marked with a period; as, Ben for Benjamin. "O RARE BEN JOHNSON!"—Biog. Dict.
"From whence the inference is plain,
Your friend MAT PRIOR wrote with pain."
—LLOYD: B. P., Vol. viii, p. 188.
IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.
FALSE PUNCTUATION.—ERRORS CONCERNING THE PERIOD.
UNDER RULE I.—DISTINCT SENTENCES.
"The third person is the position of the name spoken of; as, Paul and Silas were imprisoned, the earth thirsts, the sun shines."—Frazee's Gram., 1st Ed., p. 21; Ster. Ed., p. 23.
[FORMULE.—Not proper, because three totally distinct sentences are here thrown together as examples, with no other distinction than what is made by two commas. But, according to Rule 1st for the Period, "When a sentence, whether long or short, is complete in respect to sense, and independent in respect to construction, it should be marked with the period." Therefore, these commas should be periods; and, of course, the first letter of each example must be a capital.]