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Topic: Punctuation terms

Since September is Be Kind to Editors Month and today is National Punctuation Day, we are offering the kindness of some nomenclature for those interested in punctuation.

But do stop us if we overwhelm you with every jot and tittle of punctuation minutiae. For starters, the practice of placing punctuation marks is sometimes called stopping, while the tittle title denotes various points or small signs used as punctuation marks (consider the top dot of a semi-colon, for instance). Jot comes from iota, the name of the ninth (and smallest) letter of the Greek alphabet.

Now let's move on to a punctuation mark with multiple names. The slash or slant mark is also known as an oblique, a diagonal, a virgule, and a separatrix. Oblique and diagonal are easy enough to figure out, but virgule and separatrix might be new terms for many non-editors.

Virgule, whose Latin ancestor translates as "small rod"; "small stripe"; had a specific application for scribes working on manuscripts during the Middle Ages. Back then, virgule—that same slanted line—was the earliest form of a comma; it indicated a caesura, a break in the flow of sound in a verse.

Finally, there's separatrix. In addition to its sense synonymous with slant, separatrix also refers to the proofreader's term for the upright stroke that separates one marginal proof correction from another in the same line.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.