Why We Punctuate; or, Reason Versus Rule in the Use of Marks

by William Livingston Klein

With this notice, the first group is quite automatically formed by the reader; for the meaning of the language up to this point has been fully comprehended, and is not to be supplemented by any word in the and relation to “children.”

In a sentence as simple in its grouping as No. 1, the liability to error is not very great, especially for one who has read much; nor is the readjustment of the thought, in case such a reader has made a mistake, very difficult for him. In more complex sentences, the confusion of ideas becomes more marked, and more difficult of readjustment even by the experienced reader:

2.... Far beyond this group of beautiful hills fell gradually to the plain.

The words in the first line of this sentence, as above printed, group themselves together in a natural manner, forming a definite picture; but, when the reader reaches the first word in the second line, he discovers that a subject must be found for “fell,” for he has made a wrong grouping. It is probable that most readers would read to the end of the sentence in search of a clue to the proper grouping, then turn back to the beginning, and regroup the words after a careful study of their relations. Although the sense is thus easily obtained, the process of regrouping is distracting.

The trouble arises from the fact that the words in the first line naturally fall into a group which makes good sense, but not the sense intended by the writer. A mark (sign-board) is needed to show the reader that the natural grouping is not the correct grouping. We mean by the “natural” grouping that grouping which arises from reading the words in the usual way, thus making “this group of beautiful hills” the object of “beyond.” In other words, the natural meaning is the apparent meaning.

When the apparent meaning is not the real meaning, the reader is momentarily misled,—that is, he gets off the real line of thought, just as a traveler gets off the right road.

With a sign-board the sentence will read as follows:

2-1. Far beyond, this group of beautiful hills fell gradually to the plain.

In this detached sentence we do not know the object of “beyond.” It would, however, be furnished by what preceded it in the context; and yet the liability to error in reading the complete, unpunctuated sentence would still exist. Let us supply the context:

2-2. In the morning we saw in the east a group of hills, the crest of which we reached at noonday. Far beyond, this group of beautiful hills fell gradually to the plain.