Faced with another heated, online discussion about grammar--on whether or not the use of parentheses
and/or brackets add value to written discourse (and to avoid cleaning
the cat litter boxes), I went off to do some research. Thereby, I
encountered the 1680 book A treatis [sic] of stops, points, or
pauses: and of notes which are used in writing and in print; both very
necessary to be well known and the use of each to be carefully taught.
Composed for the authors [sic] use, who is a hearty wel-willer [sic] to
(and accordingly hath endeavoured the promoting of) the attainments of
children, and others, in the tru [sic] spelling, and exact reading of
English. I suspect all members of this group could use this title
by itself as support for their arguments--regardless of which side they
support.The University of Queensland maintains an ebook version in their library but but it is only accessible to their students. So I had to search for other online references to this treatise.
Bryan Garner in his "Parenthetical Habits: On the use and overuse of parentheses and brackets" (1) provides the only only quotes I can find from A Treatise of Stops, Points, or Pauses. "The parenthesis, he says, is “a Note made of two great Semi-circls, or half Moons; thus, ( ),” adding: “These do, and always must include, or inclose one, or more words of a perfect sense in a Sentence, which may be used, or omitted, and yet the Sense remain intire.” The related marks we call brackets he termed “crotchets,” or “Two Semi-quadrats thus, [ ].” He had little to say about brackets except urging the reader to go find examples in the margins of books, so that “you will thereby be the better enabled to understand their use, wherever else you meet with any.”
Point 1: The discussion of parentheses and brackets can make grammarians crotchety.
Second reference to The Treatise of Stops, Points, or Pauses appears in Alberto Manguel's "Best Punctuation: Point of Order." (2) Here's a lengthy quote illustrating how some writers can make poetry even out of a discussion of grammar.
"Diminutive as a mote of dust, a mere peck of the pen, a crumb on the keyboard, the full stop -- the period -- is the unsung legislator of our writing systems. Without it, there would be no end to the sorrows of young Werther, and the travels of the Hobbit would have never been completed. Its absence allowed James Joyce to weave ''Finnegans Wake'' into a perfect circle, and its presence made Henri Michaux compare our essential being to this dot, ''a dot that death devours.'' It crowns the fulfillment of thought, gives the illusion of conclusiveness, possesses a certain haughtiness that stems, like Napoleon's, from its minuscule size. Anxious to get going, we require nothing to signal our beginnings, but we need to know when to stop: this tiny memento mori reminds us that everything, ourselves included, must one day come to a halt. As an anonymous English teacher suggested in the 1680 ''Treatise of Stops, Points or Pauses,'' a full stop is ''a Note of perfect Sense, and of a perfect Sentence.''"
Manguel concludes his essay with "'No iron,' Isaac Babel wrote, 'can stab the heart with such force as a full stop put just at the right place.'"
Point 2: Discussions about grammar can lead to murder.
Most grammar searches usually end up reductio ad absurdum. So let's conclude with Megan Garber's "Screamer, Slammer, Bang...and 15 Other Ways to Say Exclamation Point." (3) Many authors, instructors, and advisors on the craft of writing deplore its use. Garber writes that "The exclamation mark, I am trying to say, is the cockroach of the punctuation world. And that's particularly so in the digital space, which so infamously encourages its proliferation (!!!!). The exclamation will, despite and because of all the things that make it terrible, survive us all." Here are the various synonyms used for the exclamation point through the centuries : admiration mark, bang, Christer, control, dembanger, dog's cock, dog's dick, gasper, pling, screamer, shriekmark, shout pole, slammer, smash, soldier, spark-spot, startler, wonderer.
Point 3: Discussion of proper use of grammar can be an extreme waster of time leading to infinite delay in putting off cleaning cat litter boxes.
Sources:
(1) http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/garner_parenthetical_habits
(2) https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/18/magazine/best-punctuation-point-of-order.html
(3) https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/screamer-slammer-bang-and-15-other-ways-to-say-exclamation-point/274687/
