Where does punctuation come from?!

[@RobWords]

Got an idea for new punctuation marks‽ Comment below. And get that EXCLUSIVE NordVPN deal + 4 months extra here → nordvpn.com/robwordsVPN It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee!!! ✌

[@Roope00]

That transition the sponsor segment was amazing, caught me off guard.

[@timbeard8457]

I like your ‽ there. Would be perfect for "Are you kidding me‽" providing the stress of the exclamation mark, but also the correct use of the question mark.

[@Azivegu]

How about why Spanish uses inverted characters at the beginning of sentences?

[@jonadabtheunsightly]

In a couple hundred more years, who knows what could happen? Traditional punctuation marks may entirely give way to emoji.

[@victoriaeads6126]

I will forever be convinced that the question mark actually came from people watching cats curve their tails when they are curious...with their butt on display right below. 😂😂

[@tolyo96]

3:22 "You see, they'd written this book called the Bible and it was like a Bible to them" this sounds so much like a Jay Foreman joke

[@leftmono1016]

They read it religiously.

[@trien30]

Bible: Shouldn't that first word be written and pronounced in Aramaic or Hebrew, then the second one written and pronounced in Ancient Greek? Just so you know, the Christian bible is only 1/5 of the one written in Hebrew: if the modern English Bible has 66 books, doesn't that mean the Hebrew bible is 5 times as long. Adults do not use the dots and dashes called niqquds in Hebrew and materis lectionis ("mother reader" in Latin, I might have spelled the Latin incorrectly) which are visual aids/pronunciation guides used to help Jewish children and foreigners learn to read in Hebrew.

[@RobWords]

High praise indeed! We went to the same university, so maybe it's how we were taught...

[@betzalelbrook8948]

The Hebrew bible only has 36 books (traditionally counted as only 24, actually!); and you're right about the Niqqud being used mostly for children, but in modern Hebrew people actually use MORE matres lectionis​ than should be used with Niqqud. Also, in many words the matres lectionis are an official part of the spelling, and it would be wrong to write a word without them.@@trien30

[@betzalelbrook8948]

Also, since you've started a thread about Hebrew and the hebrew bible: It has it's own set of punctuation! It's also used to indicate the melody of reading the text, but mainly it's a punctuation system. The most interesting things about it is it has many many specific rules, and also has 4 different levels of breaks, known as Emperors (קֵיסָרִים, Qesarim), Kings (מְלָכִים, Mlakhin), Seconds [like a second in command] (מִשְׁנִים, Mishnim), and Thirds (שָׁלִישִׁים, Shalishim [which is an old army position, it appears a few times in the bible; there's actually an HR officer position in the IDF named after it]); every level further divides the part of the sentence the one above it created (same as a comma can only divide within a sentence, which is itself marked by a full stop)

[@Itisstillok]

I came because of the intriguing topic, i stayed because of the incredible presentation of the topic, charisma, humor, editing, and graphic component

[@RobWords]

Wow, thanks!

[@cnrspiller3549]

Yes. V good presentation.:;-'?)>!":)

[@20chocsaday]

I am sure my mother used to write an upper case Q something like the digit 2 . But a bit more fancy.

[@No1sonuk]

I remember a while ago Microsoft Word had a conflict between the grammar checker and the spell checker. If you typed "crosschecked", the spell checker said it should be hyphenated. If you typed "cross-checked", the grammar checker said it should be one word!

[@roderickmain9697]

[@davidioanhedges]

Oddly cross-check is correct ... but crosschecked is also correct ... we are at a nexus

[@No1sonuk]

@@davidioanhedges It was shaping up to be a "Kirk vs computer" moment!

[@clarencetaylor7455]

But what did clippy say?

[@MichaelMcAlexander]

Context is everything. The evolution of language should be progressive toward clarity and nonambiguity. In the case of "cross-check", with a hyphen, the two verbs "cross" and "check" are being used as a compound verb (Britannica currently confirms this usage). To remove the hyphen would make the word "cross" an adjective, so "cross check" would be to "check with anger". Lastly, to remove the hyphen and make the word a compound word "crosscheck" is the most logical progression since the phrase "to cross-check" has a popular connotation. People have a tendency to abbreviate out of torpidity rather than convenience. They also like to take a noun and use it as a verb (like google). The worst propensity is to make up words (like frenemy); though, perhaps using words improperly (like fire) is a bit more egregious. :| >> Book of nouns dot com

[@busimagen]

Just adding that the semicolon also has another function in that it can be used in lists in place of commas when the list contains items that contain commas themselves. For example, you could list four movie titles such as: _Me, Myself & Irene; The Matrix; Definitely, Maybe;_ and _The Terminator._ Two of the listed titles contain commas, so the use of a semicolon between movie titles, instead of the usual comma, helps clarify which group of words belong to a single listed item rather than a separate item altogether.

[@richardhallyburton]

I believe in the law of conservation of apostrophes. For every apostrophe wrongly omitted, there is, somewhere in the universe, one wrongly inserted.

[@kendallchaos]

Thats insane why would anyone do something’ like that

[@JoyRaptor]

I love this quote

[@JoyRaptor]

'Nuff said.

[@ontheroad5317]

One of my favorite’s is when writer’s put apostrophe’s in plural’s.

[@ric889]

​@@ontheroad5317 I thought that was possession? More confusing than commas.

[@RussellFlowers]

That was such a slick segue into the sponsor that I didn't fast forward over the ad.

[@WDCallahan]

There was an ad?

[@angeliaparish]

I know! got me!

[@OzCrusader]

Didn’t catch me out. Jumped over the ad😬

[@R08Tam]

Note the number plate of my Morris Minor. They really should sponsor me.

[@renelopez8227]

Since they can tell where people fast forward the video, I never do it. I feel like if they have enough people stick around for the ads they're less likely to get dropped by sponsors. Seeing how I seldom part with my money, it's the least I can do

[@cogspace]

> Ancient scribes used this shape to mark important text, especially quotes > Email ends up reinventing the same thing > That gets inherited into imageboards as "greentext" > Now it's in Markdown, which everyone is learning because of Discord and other programs > my face when

[@NonTwinBrothers]

Speaking of computers I'm really surprised he didn't mention Ascii merging all 4 hypen lengths into one and doing away with angles quotes.

[@zaek2144]

​@@NonTwinBrothers poor « » :(

[@littelcreatchure506]

​@@NonTwinBrothers I still see a lot of people, especially people who don't speak English as a first language, still use the angle quotes so they're not completely dead

[@TheOriginalSnial]

@@NonTwinBrothers well, if you have a Mac option+\ => « and shift+option+\ => ». «manifique!». But there is a good use for angled quotes if you want to embed quotes in quotes. .oO(I also use increasingly bigger circles to represent thought bubbles.)

[@woodfur00]

@@TheOriginalSnial Yep and option+- => - and shift+option+- => -. I use them constantly, sure you can get your point across with bargain bin dashes but it still looks better to do it right

[@riggerthegeek]

It is amazing to think that a space had to be invented

[@AnPrionsaBeag]

They probably didn't use spaces to actually save space on expensive paper or stone..

[@riggerthegeek]

@@AnPrionsaBeag quite possibly.

[@dave3gan]

​@AnPrionsaBeag judging by your name you may be interested to know that it was Irish monks who first used the spaces, just checked and that's what Wikipedia says

[@AppleTom9091]

There are times when you need to have something visible to show a 'space'. When coding computer programs, especially when display layout mattered, we would use this ␣

[@Onionbaron]

"Space The Final Frontier..." - Star Trek

[@SEThatered]

Every video RobWords releases is a treat to me. The writing, editing, composition and his rhetorical skills are simply superb. The world stops existing for me while I watch it.

[@katherineozbirn6622]

Yes, the videos are oases of thought, fun, and intelligence. They are respites amidst the chaos of the lack of intelligence out there. Could we just stop bickering and get on to getting to the Moon and Mars? There's so much civilization to advance, and we just backslid, it seems, all of the time.

[@Stizel-Swik]

@@katherineozbirn6622 spot on "backsliding".

[@il-dottore]

17:18 Slight correction: Old English's possessive was -es, not just an -s (hund -> hundes, scip -> scipes, Thunor -> Thunres) The apostrophe likely came from abbreviating out that E

[@katherineozbirn6622]

Interesting. I'd like to read more. Can you post the source, please??

[@Dreamheart101]

I would like the source as well! If you can't link it, can you tell us what to search for? Search engines have gotten wirse in quality so an exact title of the source would be helpful :)

[@PhilosophyVajda]

This my impression as well. In German, the roof of the house would be "das Dach des Hauses". The '-es' appended to 'Haus' would, in English, get an apostrophe instead of the 'e', which just leaves apostrophe + s.

[@michab4083]

​@@PhilosophyVajdaPlus, in German, there are many examples of words for which you can use either "-s" or "-es" to denote the possesive case (preference most likely being regional), for example, "des Tages" vs. "des Tags". In my view, the long-term tendency is toward the shorter versions (omitting the "e").

[@scintillam_dei]

Stop trying to see meaning where there IS none, you religious case.

[@martinbruce5979]

"It just looks harder than a semi" 6:28 Oh Rob, you sure are excited about colons.

[@tamaspolyak5564]

Caught that one, lol.

[@gemmabartlett3908]

I laughed out loud and got a confused look from my partner 😂

[@Fiskene]

I don't often remember to "like" KZbin videos, but that line deserved it.

[@zs0sz]

I'm glad somebody else pointed that out!

[@mendmywings7238]

​@gemmabartlett3908 i laughed and got a weird look from my cat lol

[@LinusBoman]

If you made a mug that said "Oh silly apostrophe, what are you doing there?" I would add it to my shopping cart.

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

Apostrophes are so abused in modern writing. It makes me irrationally angry to see apostrophes used to pluralize words.

[@RobWords]

Its as good as made. *it's

[@JimFixedIt4Me]

​@@CliffSedge-nu5fv it really annoy's me

[@asailijhijr]

@@RobWords My biggest pet-peeve about English (or the dialect I've been taught) is the perceived swapping of "it's" and "its". Hmm, maybe that's unclear. The meaning associated with "it's" matches better with the spelling "its", and the meaning associated with "its" matches better with the spelling "it's"; this is all in my opinion.

[@s-x5373]

@@asailijhijr as the video explain, apostrophe is for missing thing, while s after word is for possession and didnt need apostrophe originally. So you got it reversed. It's : 's -> is its : (s)possesion of it his->hes I guess too

[@begreat22]

6:49 the greatest ad transition of all time

[@realmarker]

Real

[@kaetea3939]

Looking for this comment so I could say I agreed lol.

[@JRios270]

@@kaetea3939 Same! haha that transition was elite

[@Y0za]

True

[@TheSoonyGirl]

In 1994 I didn’t want to go to school, but in 2024 I spend all day watching Robswords! ❤

[@Bailark]

It seems that language is an acquired taste. As a toddler, you would mash Cheerios into your face with either convenient hand, and as an adult, you pair spirits with cigars or wines with stinky cheeses.

[@DenkyManner]

Same for me. The common theme being avoiding work

[@b.clarenc9517]

It's probably because you are not forced to wake up at 6 AM to do so.

[@MeridaBrandybuck]

“‘Multiple exclamation marks,’ he went on, shaking his head, ‘are a sure sign of a diseased mind.’” - Terry Pratchett

[@tulliusexmisc2191]

Of course, a main character in one of his books ended every sentence with an exclamation mark.

[@MeridaBrandybuck]

@@tulliusexmisc2191 Ooh, I haven’t gotten to that one yet. Which book is it?

[@tulliusexmisc2191]

@@MeridaBrandybuck Maskerade. To be honest, I haven't read that one for a while, and I can't remember whether it was literally every sentence, but they certainly infested that character's speech - and even singing.

[@eekee6034]

I use multiple exclamation marks all the time, but I can't disagree. ;)

[@sourcererseven3858]

@@tulliusexmisc2191 there are two characters using exclamation marks. One is the Phantom that keeps causing accidents and leaving behind notes with lots of the little buggers. What Merida quoted is actually said by the Opera House's new owner after reading one such note. The other character is said new owner, who becomes more and more deranged as the stress of trying to keep the Opera afloat despite the many accidents and even deaths gets to him.

[@plankton50]

I genuinely find grammar, punctuation and pronunciation way more enjoyable as a subject taught like history or science rather than it being this prescriptive chore or set of rules you have to learn and dutifully follow. I'm learning a foreign language and it's the approach I want to take.

[@Robin-Dabank696]

Yeah I do think etymology can help with memorising words at times, but researching etymologies is too difficult that it isn't worth the effort

[@SpeedyGwen]

what language are u learning btw ?

[@20chocsaday]

Think of foreigners trying to learn English. Children can do it, adults wonder why we are not speaking English properly.

[@beckerderbacker4976]

The exclamation mark wasn't often present on older typewriters, having to be formed by the combination of a period and an apostrophe. This was because the mark was not as commonly used back then. Another fun fact about typewriters is that the apostrophe was often in a much more inconvenient location than today and was rarely its own key. This was because contractions were used less 100 or so years ago and the apostrophe was mostly reserved for possession.

[@garyswan]

And the weird thing about contractions is that they change the word order too. 'Don't you see' expanded would be 'Do not you see' rather than 'Do you not see'. And just to save writing a single letter...

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

Other common key-saving measures on old typewriters was skipping zero (use capital O, possibly backspacing and overstriking a slash) and skipping one (use lower case l). I worked at a computer company in the late 70s, and one of the beta customers was an old manual typewriter user. He'd call up about once a week to gripe that software didn't recognize when O/0 meant the other. My friend could defuse him in seconds with things like, "I'm just the monkey, you need to talk to the organ grinder" and I didn't have the patience for that on a weekly basis.

[@karphin1]

Yes, I remember my Mom’s old Hermes typewriter being like that! You had to put in the apostrophe then backspace for the period!

[@unclestephen2722]

You say that contractions were less used but 200 years ago, in the time of Jane Austin, they were common. So it is, Sir, all the more annoying that no one seems to use them in period costume dramas.

[@willemslie]

Manual typewriters often didn't have a figure 1 either. You substituted a lower-case L.

[@JerridCook]

I love that I can take a few minutes out of my day to watch one of these videos and learn so much neat information!

[@GWsavedMYlife]

16:57 a smooth way to include this reminder. I usually don't like it when KZbinrs overuse this command. If I like the contents of a channel I naturally subscibe without being pressed. I've subscribed here right after finding the channel. Very well done and informative, thanks.

[@rexmyers991]

You are such an excellent teacher. Your enthusiasm for all things language shines through.

[@kazmanscoop]

Rob, you are an excellent educator, period (intended)

[@xandyrwlkyr2563]

Ok, not only did you make a lecture about punctuation actually interesting. You provided the most clear explanation of the difference between a colon and semi-colon I have seen while seamlessly flowing into an advertisement. I would say that counts as two miracles.

[@waynegjohnston]

14:26 The tension breaks when the dot on Rob's right shoulder disappears.

[@zzzaphod8507]

Dot's all, folks!

[@nunyabitnezz2802]

It was driving me crazy.

[@zzzaphod8507]

@@nunyabitnezz2802 Yes, like no one else

[@nunyabitnezz2802]

@@zzzaphod8507 and I can’t hep myself

[@zzzaphod8507]

@@nunyabitnezz2802 You can't stop the way you feel

[@HughPlatt-g5u]

Rob, your posts get better with every episode. This one was just superb, and SO well researched. Thank you!

[@verslalchimie5824]

Like most people watching this, I have been using these for decades and it's so amazing to finally know why, and where they come from!

[@connorjames5190]

10:36 In Japanese, "yo" (よ) is used to add exclaim to a sentence, too.

[@NickSturtz]

As a computer programmer, I use many of the lesser-used punctuation marks on a daily basis. Semi-colons denoting the end of a line of code are used in many languages (Java, JavaScript, C, C++, etc.). Brackets [], “curly braces” {}, and parentheses are also used to group code together. Even more obscure ones like the carrot ^ tilde ~ and tick ` are used. Note: I am using programmer names for these 😂

[@MrMudbill]

I think you mean caret, not carrot 🥕 although they are pronounced the same.

[@douglasphillips5870]

Computers are notoriously bad at deciphering meaning from context clues alone.

[@roderickmain9697]

@@MrMudbill - also appears as an uparrow in some character sets.

[@michaelstreeter3125]

@@MrMudbill You pronounce caret the same as carrot? Seriously?! 😆

[@I_Don_t_want_a_handle]

Bang. Though it really should be 'silence' ...

[@michaelturner2806]

I remember feeling very clever long ago when World of Warcraft was new. The class Warlock was a demon fueled magic user that could eventually juggle Damage Over Time spells - that is, spells you would cast once and instead of doing a burst of damage, every few seconds it would do a little bit of damage for its listed duration. Since I always kept up three DoTs, I named my character Ellipsis.

[@amicaaranearum]

That’s so bad it’s good.

[@oscarmartin1136]

A KZbin channel that imparts literacy while commensurately giving a historically entertaining and informative backstory. Most edifying and scholarly. Good job.

[@szemenyeianita]

Thoroughly enthralling subject matter, and even more thoroughly enjoyable presentation! Thanks a lot, Rob!

[@seanhollandcanada]

I very much admire the scripting and the natural, engaging delivery. The structure of the lesson is masterful, as is the case with Rob's other videos. Any classroom would be very lucky to have this guy standing at the front and making stuff that often bores students to death interesting. Hmm, that last sentence could perhaps have benefited from some punctuation...

[@dennisanderson3895]

Rob, I can only admit I am SO jealous of the depth and expanse of your knowledge! Never dull, always interesting and invigorating! TY!

[@letmejustsay]

Always fascinating information with a touch of subtle humour. I love this channel.

[@JayTemple]

I laughed the hardest when he mentioned the Library of Alexandria and we heard a voice say "Shhh."

[@araelthewise]

The thing I love the most about your videos is how you explain things I may never asked myself before ,BUT, Now I need to know all about it

[@josephang9927]

Interesting how writing was just a guideline for memory for so long, then writing became more autonomous as a communication medium, so grammar became very important to avoid ambiguity.

[@prof113]

"Plus, what is the dot supposed to represent?" I died!

[@naginiriddle7091]

I'd like to point out that a semi-colon is the same as ", and" and not necessarily a period. You can definitely replace it with a period, BUT you can't replace a period with a semi-colon. Semi-colons are meant to join together two similar ideas that are expressed in independent clauses, whereas a period just separates independent clauses.

[@Nexus_545]

That sponsor segue got me good. Well played. I now know why I've never in my life used a semi-colon. I probably just always use a full stop / period.

[@scaper8]

I saw it coming from the semicolon example, but still gave a, "Well played, sir, well played," when it came.

[@Vyrlokar]

One use of the semicolon that isn't mentioned is to make lists of lists "I need you to do some shopping for me: apples, pears and peaches from the greengrocer; and beef and mutton from the butcher"

[@Brunoburningbright]

The first time that a sponsors interruption didn't cause me to roll my eyes in exasperation.

[@lazerbungalow]

It was indeed one of the better played sponsor segues I have seen.

[@zzzaphod8507]

I usually fast forward through ads like that; however, that clever presentation made me much less likely to skip ahead.

[@monkpato]

That intro to the plug was so smooth I actually watched it without skipping ahead!

[@keegsmarshall6610]

This man knows words so well he snuck that ad in under my radar. Respect, Rob!

[@berndbrotify]

In German, we still just add an "s" to the end of a name to mark possession. It's just "Peters Haus". However, some time ago people started using an apostrophe there, probably because they learned in their English classes. We actually call this error a "Deppenapostroph" (dorks apostrophe). The only place where it's actually correct to use an apostrophe to mark possession is, when the name ends in an "s", as we then omit the second "s" and replace it with the apostrophe: "Hans' Haus" instead of "Hanss Haus".

[@D4BASCHT]

" 's" is valid since 1996 if a name would be otherwise ambiguous like "Andrea's". And it’s not really that much English influence, it’s only wrong since 1901 and was used before that. 1833 there was a release of "Goethe's Werke". We also regularly use apostrophe in adjective forms like "Grimm'sche Märchen", which originally had Es there.

[@lukmigindnuforhelved]

Hanß Haus ? :D

[@Carewolf]

North germanic possesive. I always found it curious in German and most grammar books pretends it doesn't exist

[@juliaclaire42]

​@@lukmigindnuforhelvedArgh... No.

[@loisdungey3528]

Using an apostrophe instead of a 2nd 's', was how we were taught in the 60's and 70's.

[@clarkoncomputers]

Rob, you're the master of the ad segues. I'm impressed, even watched the whole ad! (hehe)

[@wylizzler]

Always happy for the next RobWords ❤

[@parisdim8378]

Never stop making videos!!!! Great work, greetings from Greece.

[@karphin1]

Always enjoy these diverting trips into the history of words, punctuation, etc. I have often wondered where they came from! Thanks for enlightening us!

[@dubsar]

Your channel is just the best I know in KZbin. You deserve more recognition.

[@isaiahbaker4910]

6:29 Cheeky cheeky

[@DanielMasmanian]

Shameful; or, shameless? You decide: answers on a postcard.

[@roderickmain9697]

@@DanielMasmanian does that depend on who is full of shame - usually the person hearing is ashamed for the speaker being shameless, 🤣

[@wyrdsystems]

Came to the comments to say something similar

[@leftmono1016]

Cheeky, or simply a statement of fact 🤷‍♂️

[@DimaMuskind]

I didn't get it; can someone explain, please?

[@tthaas]

You blew my mind at 1:03. I knew about the lack of spaces in Greek and Roman (and even early post-Roman) writing, but never realized that people didn't just read silently until so late!

[@KarlEchtermeyer]

I can’t recall the citation, but there are records of people finding those who read silently to be suspicious and mysterious.

[@edwardviolahands]

Transition to ad while giving examples - A+

[@marksamson1753]

As a journalism student, this video helps me alot to deepen my knowledge about writing and symbols. Im subscribing by the way.

[@cybetica]

Hi Rob, in both web and app development, the ellipsis is used as a symbol on buttons for 'more' too - often seen at the top right of western frontend web implementations. However for stylistic reasons, the ellipsis was often rotated 90 degrees, becoming vertical, along with elongating the dots to horizontal bars. This in turn has given the ellipsis a new name in that form as the 'hamburger' character, denoting how the three bars now look to a user.

[@Vim-Wolf]

I love the interrobang, and I’m trying to re-introduce it by using it on a regular basis.

[@DanTheisen]

Yes!! It should’ve been in the title.

[@zzzaphod8507]

@@DanTheisen Why‽

[@ZeeHatley]

@@zzzaphod8507because the title has it broken down to ?! instead of combined ‽

[@PhoenixClank]

In chemistry class we had some very old documents that were typed on a typewriter. You could write subscripts, as in CO₂, by shifting the paper half a line and typing a regular 2, but that would take up too much space, so they had a different notation: CO[2]. I suppose the same was done in mathematics as well, where a₂ denotes the 2nd element in the sequence a, and was written with typewriters as a[2]. This is why in computer programming, square brackets are still used to this day to index into sequences. (The only difference being that a[2] refers to the third element of the list a, because programmers start counting at 0 whereas mathematicians start counting at 1.)

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

I see in some modern typed mathematics a_2 or t_n, etc. to mean the same thing if your word processor doesn't have subscript capability.

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

Mathematicians sometimes also start counting at zero - or at any other number, depending on the formula.

[@richardhole8429]

Those numbering conventions vary among different programming languages. Using brackets instead of parentheses are also a modern adaption.

[@PhoenixClank]

@@CliffSedge-nu5fv I was mostly poking fun at Matlab, the only programming language I know that does start counting at 1 (though I'm sure there are plenty more). As for the a_2 notation, I don't know of any _programming_ languages that do this, but it is used for typesetting in TeX (and probably others?). If you want more subscripted characters you gotta use curly braces, as in a_{42} or a_{t_n}. (Also you might make the argument that TeX is a programming language after all.)

[@MCLooyverse]

@@PhoenixClank Julia and (arguably) Lua count from 1 as well. Lua is arguable because, as I recall, it does not have lists, only dictionaries. But it does allow you to omit keys from a dictionary literal, in which case it will assume 1, 2, 3, etc., rather than starting from 0. But, if you do something like `x = {0 = "a", "b", "c"}` then you get, effectively, a 0-indexed list. Of course, Lua's whole stdlib expects 1-indexed lists, because that's what its sugar defaults to.

[@heffo67]

I could never have imagined that a video about punctuation could be so interesting and entertaining. Fantastic stuff Rob, thank you!

[@lilykatmoon4508]

I’ve always been fascinated by punctuation and grammar. It was one of those nerdy things that was fun for me to learn and practice. I loved diagramming sentences, lol. This was very cool!

[@freddoflintstono9321]

The man has a point . Joking aside, that was brilliant, thank you.

[@Vim-Wolf]

Pendulous dangly bits is now my text notification.

[@Brunoburningbright]

It could have been lifted from a Monty Python skit.

[@laurabetts8714]

Put that on a mug or T-shirt! ! too much? Am I laughing at my own joke?

[@ulrike9978]

The "John his horse" bit really made me grin, because this is absolutely how you denote posession in Bavarian, to the chagrin of high german speakers. Dative form of the name/noun+his/her/its/heir+subject. So: dem Schorsch sei(n) Huat = Georgs Hut = George´s hat

[@Karen-ul9hd]

Also in (what is considered not-so-grammatical) Dutch.

[@annieoakley3516]

Auf Schwäbisch ebenso.

[@ulrike9978]

@@annieoakley3516 Da haben die Dialekte halt doch Ähnlichkeiten:-)

[@chzinch]

Swiss German as Well.

[@gubsak55]

My German colleagues from Saarland used something similar. 😊

[@mindyschaper]

Such a great video! Love all your videos. I love historical linguistics and these videos are fun and educational for both me and my kids. We put them on while commuting. Also, as someone who works at a content agency, I'm constantly thinking about how to present information, and your videos are great.

[@65Tedybear]

About the Genitiv with 'his'. I grew up in the 60th and 70th in Northrhine-Westphalia in Germany. In the spoken German (albeit not in the more formal written German) I have perpetually heard phrases like 'Peter sein Rad' or 'Susi ihre Puppe' (Peter his bicycle / Susi her doll). I think, it was especially common in the rhine area around Cologne and Düsseldorf. Very interesting and educational video, not only for english people, but also for me as German. Thank you very much.

[@eliavrad2845]

9:30 That really caught me off-guard; Well played.

[@CardboardBots]

This channel is so worthwhile.

[@matthewhewitson80]

Possibly the best segue into an Ad read I have seen in some time!

[@katyvdb5993]

18:28 You reminded me of M. R. James' dig at over-use of the ellipsis: 'Dots are believed by many writers of our day to be a good substitute for effective writing. They are certainly an easy one. Let us have a few more...'

[@oldmanwinter63]

I love a well done ad break!! Thank you!

[@InigoQuilez]

¿When did the inverted question and exclamation marks got introduced in Spanish? They are really useful, ¡English should adopt them too!

[@PamelaRoss-qh6jh]

Inigo--- Estoy de acuerdo.

[@user6c7mxkmg]

The initial interrogation was decided by the Academia in 1753, and it was included as mandatory in 1754 (Ortografia de la Real Academia...), only for 'long' questions. In practice people used it a lot, and in 1870 it was made official it should be used at all times. As for the initial exclamation (at first, 'admiración'), people started to use it spontaneously, following the introduction of the initial interrogation! The Academia noted it was common by 1770, but it wasn't until 1884 (a few civil wars and invasion in the middle) that they made it mandatory. And in 2014 it was renamed 'exclamación'.

[@carlostma643]

They're not really needed in English. In Spanish there's no difference between questions and statements. E.g. "Tienes una cuchara" (You have a spoon) and "¿Tienes una cuchara?" (DO you have a spoon?) are the same but English has the "Do" to mark that it's a question at the start

[@K.F-R]

I see your purposefully ambiguous wordplay, and I approve. I always thought the old colon was the bottom one. Can't think why.

[@tulliusexmisc2191]

Strictly speaking, if you start at the bottom you need to go up to find the colon.

[@richarddaugherty8583]

Thanks Rob! Retired developer here. I loved this both for the English usage, history, and programming language syntax! We pronounce '!' as Bang, and in C# and Javascript or most languages that use the C syntax, a line of code ends with a semicolon. It can run on for multiple screen lines but won't compile without that semi. Quotations have a couple of different usages. Single quotes delimit a literal string such as 'Rob' whereas double quotes can contain variables as well as literals. An easy way to trip up! All of the brackets are used as well and have particular use cases for each. I'm sorry to point out that you missed an opportunity! When you introduced the period and used a sound effect, my brain immediately jumped to Victor Borges "Verbal Punctuation" comedy routine. If you haven't seen that you *must* look that up! I think you might bust a gut as we say here in the USA! What's even funnier is that he did these routines with a straight face. I do so love free association!

[@rhaedas9085]

I think any kid brought up on the older Sesame Street episodes would have thought the same about the sound effects of punctuation.

[@nicholasvinen]

Hash bang slash bin slash bash!

[@Starlight_Hellfire]

I pronounce “!” as “not”

[@richarddaugherty8583]

@@Starlight_Hellfire Good one! I totally forgot about negation! Lot's of places to use a bang! :)

[@richarddaugherty8583]

@@nicholasvinen Hooray for Bash scripting! I dumped Windows and now use Linux Mint for my main computer. I have not quite a score of Raspberry Pi's but I'm getting there! One is a media server with 15 TB of media files!

[@bethwilliams4903]

Those paragraph long ‘sentences’ finally explains German and the need or desire to read ones entire work out loud explains Rimbaud (who wandered thru the forests of Ardennes declaiming his various prose poems aloud long before they were ever written, and with notable punctuation quirks unique and characteristic). Another excellent episode Rob!

[@stuff3508]

Always amazing. How can someone be so excited about words and punctuation. Always entertaining. Good job! Keep it up!

[@stischer47]

Coming out of American computer science - ( ) parentheses, [ ] brackets, { } braces. As for the apostrophe for possession, I was always taught it came from Old Anglo-Saxon where -es denoted possession (similar to German today). However, as English began to prefer -s for plurals, the -es for possession became -'s with the apostrophe indicating the possessive 'e' had been dropped.

[@joehopfield]

Algol68 used the apostrophe where C/java/python would use a dot (obj'val instead of obj.val ). Made sense to me as a freshman

[@pmbrig]

Punctuation matters: No, no more tequila, thanks. No, no! More tequila! Thanks!

[@martinstephenson2226]

Shall we eat, grandma vs Shall we eat grandma!

[@zzzaphod8507]

Barbershop sign: What do you think? I'll shave you for nothing and give you a drink! What?! Do you think I'll shave you for nothing and give you a drink? What do you think I'll shave? You, for nothing, and give you a drink?!

[@SomebodyHere-cm8dj]

A panda eats, shoots and leaves. vs A panda eats shoots and leaves.

[@michaelturner2806]

The panda eats shoots and leaves. 🎍 🌿 The panda eats 🍜, shoots🔫, and leaves 🚪💨.

[@spiralpython1989]

What’s that on the road ahead? cf What’s that on the road? A head?

[@JeevasJerico13]

10:22 I got sent in a different dimension

[@urinstein1864]

It's great to see, how much your video craft has improved from a couple years ago. Not to say it was ever bad, but your scripting, editing and presentation have become quite delightful. Great video.

[@coldpastaa9292]

that segue into the ad was flawless, set me up so good ty Rob XD

[@talideon]

Dutch has an extra use of the apostrophe. If a noun ends in a vowel, you'll often put an apostrophe before the "s" (collega→collega's) when pluralising it so the vowel doesn't end up being read as short.

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

Oh no, is that why I see so much English writing incorrectly using apostrophes to pluralize words? Some sort of Dutch infection?

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

English sometimes does the same when transliterating foreign words to make sure both vowels are pronounced separately. Sometimes "ö" is used, as in coöperation.

[@lizj5740]

@@CliffSedge-nu5fv I wouldn't think you could blame the grocer's apostrophe on the Dutch; most grocers (in Australia, at least) are Italian or Greek. ;-)

[@bonnie115]

@@grizwoldphantasia5005 I've frequently seen ö used in Nöel, but never in cooperation (until you used it).

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

@@bonnie115 it shows up mostly in old books, but I'm old enough to have accumulated some of them :-)

[@t.kersten7695]

why in the world has Rob to be so funny, entertaining and educative at the same time? now i have another great channel in my subscription-list but after all the previous videos i just had no further excuse for resisting any longer. and yet another english speaking YT-channel on my list which cements the ratio between english and german speaking channels in my list around 9 to 1.

[@lady_draguliana784]

"No Photo Available" on aged parchment was hilarious! 🤣

[@halflink]

The best segue into the sponsor segment I have ever seen (and will most likely ever see) on YT ))) And very interesting overview of punctuation mark history of course.

[@BrentBarnard]

This video is just fantastic: so well written and so well put together. It's totally stunning.

[@cloppj2]

11:37 The Italian writer Ugo Ojetti also hated the exclamation mark, and left an unforgettable invective in one of his writings a hundred years ago: "I hate the exclamation mark, this great plume on such a small head, this sword of Damocles hanging over a flea, this great spit for a sparrow, this pole to impale common sense, this toothpick for the amusement of empty mouths, this cobbler's awl, this morphine addict's syringe, this rod of blasphemy, this dagger of hyperbole, this halberd of rhetoric. When, as is the custom in our shaky times, I see two or three of them in a row at the end of a sentence, looking like the sticks on the back of a plucked goose, I close the book because I feel it is a lie. Now there are also those who couple it with the question mark, which seems to see Harlequin leaning on Punchinello. I hate this romantic little black tear so much when I see it dripping on the poor white page, that I imagine I discover in it either the cause or the effect, certainly the clear symbol of all the evils of our letters, arts and customs. And if I could make laws, I would banish the exclamation mark from calligraphy, from typographies, from typewriters, from the Morse alphabet, in the hope that Italians would forget about it when they no longer see it, even when they speak and think, and would gradually expel from their blood this sharp microbe, which, where it arrives, causes brains and reason to rot, stupefies adults, blinds the visionaries, stupefies the wise, and makes saints go mad."

[@riverAmazonNZ]

Ugo needs to get a grip!

[@s-x5373]

based

[@michellebyrom6551]

Clearly an Italian, being so dramatic about it. An Englishman would merely intimate that he didn't much like the device. A French man would dismiss it as unimportant and a German would ask "What's the point of this?" with a straight face.

[@johnterrencemiles]

I believe his hyperbolic sentence itself should end in a exclamation mark.

[@SimplePhysics00]

Imagine wasting so much energy and hate on a simple symbol that helps others convey information!

[@kimvibk9242]

@6:42 - As a Dane I am pleased to see that you are using Victor Borges' system of Phonetic Punctuation! Look it up if you want a good laugh.

[@Brunoburningbright]

Victor Borge was an absolute delight.

[@AnotherCraig]

This video was great on its own merits, but it was all the better for reminding me of that classic bit 😆

[@SleinJinn]

15:07 Those sure look like n-dashes! But n-dashes are for ranges and the like; they mean something like "from ... to" or "between". The longer m-dashes fit your use. In keeping with the theme of this video, they're so named for their equivalence in width to the eponymous letters on a printing press (or, in the digital age, in Ascii).

[@chrishoward140]

ASCII only has a single character for minus, n-dash, m-dash and hyphen.

[@gaborzoltai6965]

This is one of the BEST things you have ever done. I even love the custom intro to the sponsor promo @6:29 :D

[@timdec]

Great video again, this is my second one and probably the start of a long stretch of many. I slightly question your choice of a background location, although the combination of soothing nature and a wall with illegible text on it is somehow strangely fitting. Yet I'm curious about the tought process of selecting it. And there are many wordjokes, usually I'm not a fan of them, but in this universe of words I can very much accept them. Good stuff!

[@rmdodsonbills]

The apostrophe may have started life for a dumb reason, but there is a good reason to have it! Simply adding an S to the end is also how we pretty frequently do plurals, so having an apostrophe helps clarify, especially when the noun that is owning something is itself plural. For example, if I were to just say "my friends cars" you can't be sure whether I have multiple friends or just one friend with multiple cars.

[@WaterShowsProd]

Except, today you're more likely to see apostrophes misused to denote plurals. Poor apostrophe... For some reason people have forgotten how to use it, and it seems like that's always been the case. :(

[@amicaaranearum]

@@WaterShowsProd Everyone knows that the apostrophe means “here comes an ‘s’”.

[@WaterShowsProd]

@@amicaaranearum I've speculated that people a hundred years from now will wonder why we used to write S without that little stroke in the upper-left-hand corner.

[@rmdodsonbills]

@@WaterShowsProd Well, it isn't necessarily about forgetting how to use it. I certainly catch myself inserting an apostrophe even though I'm writing a plural. (I *hope* I catch them all right away) There was a time when I was taught to use an apostrophe to make a plural in certain circumstances (like when you are talking about a family "The Dodson's" or specifying multiple copies of a single letter "p's and q's") I do like the more consistent rules I've seen more recently ("Ps and Qs" "The Dodsons"). In my experience, I've seen apostrophes used correctly more often than not.

[@alexgregory5583]

Looks harder than a semi...

[@parahandy2000]

Yeah that was clever…

[@joelinherts]

There should be a punctuation mark to indicate a double entendre

[@Stilvoid]

Very quick cut after that 😂

[@frogandspanner]

11:50 13:32 At primary school in the '50s we called them _inverted commas_ , and you will note I have not used them as I was not directly quoting. That term seems to have disappeared, along with much of my memory.

[@kcgunesq]

I suspect that in part, it was simply because the comma had already been introduced and they could build off of that while reminding you that you needed to do them differently. Had that teacher been speaking to another adult, I question whether they would have described them as such.

[@PhoenixClank]

In Germany we (rarely) call the apostrophe a _high comma_ ( _Hochkomma_ ). Also I hate that KZbin’s markdown must be surrounded by whitespace.

[@adriancarlton-oatley9736]

I think I was taught (round about the same era) that they were quotation marks when they were round actual speech and inverted commas when they were round a noun or noun phrase e.g. "It's called an 'apostrophe'."

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

I only hear _inverted commas_ from British speakers. Americans always say _quotation marks,_ or just _quotes_ for short.

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

The virgule / backslash is still used in poetry to end a line of verse that is not necessarily the end of a sentence.

[@verstrahlt1907]

I love your show / channel; everything is well explained, represented & some humour…

[@matthewwasser5621]

I like to read to myself aloud. Aloud enough to hear myself but also not to bother other people, if I'm around other people. Sometimes I find it hard to know which punctuation to use. I am often confused about the written language, that's why I like your channel.

[@gjamdz]

Great video. In Spanish we have opening marks for question and exclamation, ¿ and ¡. They are used less and less mainly because of the use of keyboards and lazyness 😁. And since we're here, the ellipsis is called "puntos suspensivos" something like "suspense dots". When you translate that literally is kind of poetic

[@Dewdropmon]

Suspense dots. I really, REALLY like that name.

[@Treinbouwer]

17:27 In Dutch it still is just an s added to a word and the ' is only used to mark something is left out. In this case it marks an extra letter needed for pronunciasion or gramar not being written. Georges=george+posessive s Auto's=auto (car) +plural s. The ' is an extra o needed for pronunciasion (autoos, but you do not write that and note that not all plurals end in an s) Suus'=suus (a name)+' for the posessive s that is not needed pronunciasion wise, but should be present gramar wise. 's In itselve means des, the genitive masculin and nuter singular of the definite article, usually -but not exclusively- used in stoned forms. 's Avonds (in the evening)

[@onliwankannoli]

How about the direction of writing? Left to right, right to left, top to bottom? Or, as the ancient Greeks, alternating from right to left and left to right, known as βουστροφηδόν - an ox-turn.

[@stephena1196]

I was told, when little, writing from left to right and top to bottom was because, when writing in ink ones hand wouldn't smudge the writing.

[@onliwankannoli]

@@stephena1196 That’s true, when writing in ink. I suppose it wasn’t a factor when writing involved a chisel.

[@zzzaphod8507]

@@stephena1196 If you're assuming everyone is right-handed?

[@carriescostumescrochet]

Loved this. Both educational and very entertaining. Wow, your transitions from one to the next was very enjoyable.

[@ethanyoung5200]

What a fun video! As a word and history lover, your channel is one of my favorites

[@bernardobuffa2391]

6:55 nice try.... right arrow key to the rescue!

[@ardentommcclure4732]

Two decades ago I solved a printing problem that the Thai language does not put spaces between words but rather uses spaces as commas and periods, indicating a pause in the flow of words. But that doesn’t work well in printed or on line. After several months of part-time research I discovered a simple algorithm that divides between words at the end of the line. It actually inserts a code marker between each word so the computer knows where to spit the sentence or phrase. Thai is a monosyllabic language like Chinese, but written in an alphabet from India. (Courtesy of Buddhism). I also learned during this that Thai is now beginning to borrow question marks and quotation marks as useful borrowings from the west.

[@MrBradleykeith]

The cat's tail as the question mark, well we know what the dot represents, as it walks away from us after posing the question!

[@fgriffintx]

Kind of like the cats meow, but different 😮

[@keesdevreugd9177]

This was way more interesting than I thought it would be. Instant fan. Subscribed.