Description

So. Good. So. Sharp. So. Clear. You. Need. This. Book. Period’ Lucy Mangan, author of Bookish

Since the dawn of writing, punctuation has helped us tell our stories. Scribes in ancient Alexandria simplified their scrolls with full stops and commas, opening the doors of their library to the entire world. During the Renaissance, semicolons and exclamation marks empowered writers to satirise society and inject life and passion into their texts. Even today, the youngest generations creating new rules for emojis, caps and irony in the lexicon of online language.

In this riotous global history, Florence Hazrat reveals the creators and rebels who made punctuation what it is today, conjuring new meanings from commas and colons, parentheses and pilcrows. Witty and original, On the Mark journeys across the world and through the evolution of language, celebrating the silent marks that infuse our words with meaning and shape our literary cultures.

Publisher Review

Deft, thoughtful and fascinating. This book exposes the hidden language that surrounds our words — Mark Forsyth, author of THE ETYMOLOGICON So. Good. So. Sharp. So. Clear. You. Need. This. Book. Period — Lucy Mangan, author of BOOKISH This wonderful history of punctuation is also a history of the world. In Hazrat’s hands, every story has a point, and every point a story — Simon Garfield, author of JUST MY TYPE An absolute delight! Rich, wise, and elegantly told. This is a treasure chest of pleasingly obscure information. There is so much more to the written word than the letters of the alphabet — Dennis Duncan, author of INDEX, A HISTORY OF THE On the Mark is dizzying, compendious and illuminating – a timely and rewarding quest through the past, present and future of punctuation — Keith Houston, author of SHADY CHARACTERS A thought-provoking history of language’s unsung dots and squiggles. Punctuation may be silent, but thankfully there’s Hazrat to tell the tale — Eli Burnstein, author of DICTIONARY OF FINE DISTINCTIONS PRAISE FOR ‘AN ADMIRABLE POINT’ * – * An enjoyably mischievous book * TLS * A short book, but it carries a punch’ * Spectator *