CHAPTER X
CONVENTIONAL USES OF MARKS
Many uses of marks seem to be based solely upon convention, or arbitrary custom. Back of this convention there may be, in many cases, reason for the punctuation; but, more frequently, there seems to be no reason.
It is not always worth while carefully to attempt to distinguish between reason and convention; but it is quite important to know what is the best, or, at least, what is good, conventional usage, and to follow it in one’s writing. We think it reasonable to call good only such conventional punctuation as is found in the work of writers, and of expert editors of copy, who use marks with a fair degree of consistency, and do not often violate the fundamental principles of punctuation already discussed herein. The punctuation found in most weekly and monthly periodicals is very poor, and is often inferior to that of daily newspapers. In a very few magazines (it would be difficult to name a half dozen, either American or European), and in a considerable number of daily newspapers, the use of marks is discriminating and helpful; in most of our periodical literature the use of marks is so distractive as to make the presence of any mark other than the end-marks of doubtful value, at least to readers not familiar with the meanings of most of the marks of punctuation.
THE PERIOD
1. A period or any other mark, except an interrogation-point, is not often used after a display line in the title-page of a book. This practice is well-nigh universal in book-work, and almost equally so in magazines.
2. A period is generally placed after the letter or the number indicating a division in enumerations. Periods are so used after the figures 1 and 2 numbering this and the preceding paragraph.
If the divisions have subdivisions, and the subdivisions are further subdivided, it is helpful to the reader if a good conventional style is followed. In case of four divisions and subdivisions, a good conventional style is as follows: