The Curious Power of Punctuation
a day ago
- The opening line of 'Pride and Prejudice' is often misremembered without its commas, which don't follow modern grammatical rules.
- Jane Austen used dashes and ampersands in her manuscripts; the punctuation in her published novels was likely cleaned up by editor William Gifford.
- Florence Hazrat's book 'On the Mark' argues punctuation shapes reading experience and reflects human history, but critics note its overreach on topics like the Gaza conflict.
- Hazrat criticizes modern digital communication for reducing punctuation use and promoting emojis over written words.
- Sarah L. Kaufman's 'Verb Your Enthusiasm' champions verbs as the most powerful part of speech, using examples like Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' ending.
- Kaufman advocates for concise newspaper-style writing, advising against adverbs and passive voice, but this approach may not fit all writing contexts.
- The rise of AI and chatbots may end the embodied reading experience, turning writing into mere data to decode.
- Both Hazrat and Kaufman view reading as a somatic experience, but AI threatens this by generating human-like text without consciousness.
- Changes in writing technology—from punctuation to texting and AI—correlate with shifts in social power and literacy access.
- The author questions whether future readers will distinguish human from machine writing, potentially devaluing skilled human authors.