Now, when the reverse situation arises in division, a similar error is of frequent occurrence. Suppose we are to divide 650,000 by 3,125. This sometimes results:
| The Wrong Way. | 3,125) 650,000 (28 |
| 625 0 | |
| ——— | |
| 25,000 | |
| 25,000 |
That is, the figurer, when he came to try to divide 2,500 by 3,125, realizing that it would not “go,” simply “brought down” another figure. He forgot that the real mental process was 3,125 goes into 2,500 no times, or produces “naught,” and that “naught,” or “cipher,” must be set down in the proper tens column. The only safe way, again, is to indicate every process; to “bring down” but one figure at a time and to set down every result, even the “nothings,” in its proper place. That will make our example look like this:
| The Right Way. | 3,125) 650,000 (208 |
| 625 0 | |
| 25 00 | |
| 00 00 | |
| ——— | |
| 25 000 | |
| 25 000 |
Very simple, but let me “whisper,” if you really master and understand the mysteries of “long division,” you have crossed the Rubicon of education. There is no door in all human learning that need remain forever sealed to a persistent mind that has truly found its way clearly and understandingly through this first great stumbling block. Ask any old-fashioned school teacher to dispute that proposition. And, “whisper” again, there are men counting coupons who can do long division, to be sure, but who could not tell you why it is done as it is, if the price of stocks depended on it.
Punctuation.
Punctuation is a system of marks the purpose of which is to indicate to the eye the relation of words to one another in meaning, and so the relative importance of the component parts of a written composition.
The marks of Punctuation, corresponding, for the most part, to pauses in spoken language, are the comma (,), the period (.), the note of interrogation (?), the note of exclamation (!), the colon (:), the semi-colon (;), the dash (—), parentheses ( ), brackets [ ], quotation marks (“ ”), and the hyphen (-).
Purpose of Punctuation.—To make a written composition clear and intelligent, and to facilitate the task of reading.
Avoid All Unnecessary Remarks.—In modern writings punctuation marks are less frequently used than they were among writers in the early part of the last century. A sentence consisting of a simple subject, a simple predicate, and a simple object, or the relation of whose parts is clearly intelligible without marks, should not be encumbered with any. Take, for instance, the following two sentences: