Speccie Punctuation
 

Nothing for us this week, though Chris O'Carroll nearly made it. The competition looks rather challenging.


NO. 2731: Pause and effect
You are invited to provide a poem in praise of punctuation (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, if possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 18 January.

Quick first effort:


APOSTROPHE TO PUNCTUATION

Let's now praise punctuation.
The marks it makes are myriad.
The dash of hyphenation,
the dot that is a period,

the squiggle that's a comma,
together put the soul in
our language, and add drama,
as does the semicolon.

I know these days the fashion is
to mock it and attack it,
and yet I find my passion is
aroused by one plain bracket.

Quotation marks add energy
and guillemets add spark.
How to end this poem? You'll see:
An exclamation mark!

Nice one, Roger. Is this one clear as it is?

Punctuation Verse

Hail Punctuation! Elegant Examples
Of Full Dress Language! Shall I show you samples?
Firstly, beloved by poet and by clerk,
The ? and !

: : : and ; ; ; and . . .
Keep order in our sentences, like cops.
THE UPPER CASE DENOTES THE VIP,
while lower case will do for you and me.

, , , are little tadpoles, meant for pauses
In lists of words, in phrases and in clauses.
' ' ' ' ' ' , pairs of ears, float
Above the line and signify a 'quote'.

modernist poet ee cummings banned
all punctuation but the &
*** serve to keep us all polite
When we say wh*rehouse, b*gger, f*ck or sh*te.

I did find it a bit tricky to read at first, John; then I realised that you have to say the plural word for each piece of punctuation. You could, of course, submit it with the full words in, except for the last line, which would still be effective - like this:

(Your last stanza is a killer! :D )

Hail Punctuation! Elegant Examples
Of Full Dress Language! Shall I show you samples?
Firstly, beloved by poet and by clerk,
The question mark and exclamation mark.

Colons and semicolons and full stops
Keep order in our sentences, like cops.
THE UPPER CASE DENOTES THE VIP,
while lower case will do for you and me.

Commas are little tadpoles, meant for pauses
In lists of words, in phrases and in clauses.
Inverted commas, pairs of ears, float
Above the line and signify a 'quote'.

modernist poet ee cummings banned
all punctuation but the ampersand.
Asterisks serve to keep us all polite,
When we say wh*rehouse, b*gger, f*ck or sh*te.

neat one, john, but...
 

it's not true about e e cummings.

No it isn't but it's true ENOUGH. I like ee cummings. It isn't totally true about inverted commas.

However -

the poet ee cummings nearly banned
all punctuation save the ampersand

or

ee cummings practically banned
all punctuation save the ampersand

how bout dat?

What did you think of my suggestion to use the easier-to-read version, John? Or maybe submit both?

Of those two couplets, above, I'd go with the latter. You don't need 'the poet' before his name; it's rather like saying 'the singer Elvis Presley'.

... or what about something like

ee cummings might as well have banned... ?

True or not doesn't matter, John. The poetry stands up by itself. The truest poetry is the most feigning, etc. Sometimes I feel it's the most bullshit. Our current laureate never said anything sillier than 'poetry cannot lie'.

I feel this ought to be one for those who like me were grammar schoolboys in the 1950s & really got taught punctuation, no messing, but so far I'm out of ideas. John has set the bar high here.

I think you are probably right, Jayne. I tried it on my daughter and she thinks you are right. But I could submit two, one under a pseudonym. That's allowed, isn't it? And you're right about ee cummings.

Did she really say that, Bazza? What CAN she have meant?

It's utter nonsense, John. They also say the camera never lies, but it bloody well does!!!

You can submit at least two, John, without needing a pseudonym. I won a 'Twelve Days' prize and I had three tries.

Thank you, Jayne. I shall do that.

I like Jayne's edit. Untethered to actual words punctual marks are off-putting little things, aren't they?

I prefer the version with marks instead of words - makes the reader do a bit of work, which is usually a good thing.

Punctuation
 

Ellipsis signals...hesitation, and exclamation, excitation!
To balance loads, a comma tows. To rehash-- we hire a dash.
Capitals Lead and Emphasize, dwarfing letters half their size.
The sweet and small apostrophe averts plural catastrophes.

Punctilious, the blunt full stop is grammar's tireless traffic cop.*
The brackets (sanitation guys) enclose just what a phrase denies.
Quotation marks with tongs suspend the words you do not “comprehend“.
Should you desire to inquire, mark with question’s twisty gyre.
For heavy lifting take in hand a squat & muscled ampersand.
@ points to a virtual place, toils the roads of cyberspace.

Humble marks, our punctuation, serve in every situation.
Every stroke, or strike of key, compounds their abject slavery.
Unpaid labourers of the word, couriers and serfs unheard;
If un-tethered from their master, it shall intimate disaster.
Should they gather in a restive mob, they'll disdain to do their job.
Collectively, a motley crew--they go on strike, and shout: @#$%^&* you!

*was: "Punctual and to a point, periods prose with sense anoint,
Without cease, they call "full stop!," grammar's tireless traffic cop" (thanks, Jerome!)


A few questions:

What is the name of an @ ? (L11)
I believe standard British punctuation has the period or full stop after (not inside) the quotation marks? (L7 ).
Does British English ever refer to full stops as "period"s?
Thanks,
Susan

Susan, An @ is an 'at'. It used to be used in itemised bills, as 375 grommets @ 2d a grommet + 74 punnets @ 1s and 3d a punnet = ? The bane of my life in arithmetic lessons before the invention of the calculator and the decimal currency.

We do use 'period' in that way.

Thanks, John. The poem is still rough, but it was definitely inspired by the unease your first version provoked in me. All those cheeky marks taking over the page. They must know their place! Best, Susan

Though other marks earn marks for clarity
And order, one’s upsetting, rude and rash—
A prima donna of irregularity—
Let’s praise the reckless, headstrong, heedless dash—

It beats—at least this is my private thesis—
The stolid, dotty, old ellipsis
At mimicking—Eurek—aposiopesis—
The force with which a sudden insight grips us—

Pointless, it draws us on while yelling, “Pause!”
It has what Dickinson and Sterne both sought—
It lets one build one’s Babel clause-on-clause.
It renders the unsaid, the great un-thought

And crashes narratives before they’re done—
Distracts us while another fragment’s sinking—
It’s like that poem that ends—you know the one—
Of what was it—just now—that I was thinking?

Frank

That's brilliant--Frank.
Best regards,
David

Thank you, Davidf. I know you know the poem referred to.

Nice one, Frank, though I confess with shame that I do not know the poem referred to. There's one by Robert Graves that ends with a comma.

Not exactly Speccie-style, but I had fun with these obscure punctuation marks, all of which are capitalized.


Punctuation Gallant (diss, ambiguation)

Guillemets was going to Interpunct his Solidus
with a Bullet, or possibly a Dagger or Carret,
making Hash of his Numero, just two Degrees north
of his Ditto mark. He narrowly missed the Octothorpe,
dislodging his Obelus (always an Ordinal Indicator
of a man in his Prime). But Pilcrow Tilde the Section sign,
Underscoring his Understrike with a Broken Bar or Pipe.

It was the Currency of Asterism with a Tee;
Uptack and Indexed Fist, his Lozenge of Irony
and a Tie to his Diacritical Remarks about Non-English
Brackets for all but his Whitespace characters.
All of his Inverted Exclamations were to Nought.
He went out Backslash, with Dash and a great Interrobang.

--Give us a clue, Frank.

Susan, I love it.

I predict "Punctuation Gallant" will win this contest.

It's "Metaphors of a Magnifico" by Wallace Stevens - I've always wanted to use that device, too.

Frank

No. I shall win. Frank's is better and may win also but it requires one to know stuff. Like about Wallace Stevens. Only poets know that stuff and some of us don't. Hell, Frank. send it to The Times Literary Supplement. They pay £60

Ah, punctuation, punctuation; there is nothing better.
I absolutely love it! Punctuation makes a letter,
a poem or an article, a novel or a note:
Whatever uses proper punctuation gets my vote.
I praise it every single day; I couldn't live without it.
Will punctuation ever cease to be? Good grief, I doubt it!
For punctuation serves a vital function. We can't lose it.
It makes me rather sad that many don't know how to use it.

At Percival's effusive 'There you are!'
A nervous shudder ripples round the bar.
In seconds now, he'll start; guts clench in fear,
Knowing how he'll unleash, so we must hear
One dreary lumbering stream of words, extending
Without a break, or any sign of ending,
Meandering on and on from clause to clause
To phrase to clause to phrase without a pause,
Unstoppable, because to interrupt
Mid-flow would seem ill-mannered and abrupt.
We fume, but manfully resist the urge
To hit the mouth exuding verbal splurge.
Pity the man! Poor Percy's education
Included no firm drills in punctuation
To teach him that it's stops give utterance shape,
And to just jabber is to be an ape.

Nice ones, Jayne and George.