It seems to have all started with pictures on a cave wall. At some point letters developed and from that came writing, which then required punctuation. (See the t-shirt showing Let's eat Grandma and Let's eat, Grandma) (chuckle)!

A blast from the past, or at least my past to start with: back when I was learning to type, on the old manual my mom had, in order to type the exclamation point I had to type a period, then backspace and use an apostrophe.

Shady Characters: the Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks, by Keith Houston is the history and evolution of ! and @ as well as a few we don't see any more and some that never caught on. (Think of the interrobang, the combination of ? and !). For some their meaning and use have changed, others have several functions. For me, the # will always be first and foremost a musical symbol. ;-)

While waiting for another book on punctuation to arrive I read Script and Scribble: the Rise and Fall of Handwriting, by Kitty Burns Florey. Gone are the days when handwriting was almost an art, in fact, is seems children are now taught how to type in the third grade instead. This is a nice history of the various styles of cursive writing and how it was taught (remember row after row of loops?). There is an interesting chapter too, on what we use when we write ... a quill? Fountain pen? Gel pen? I found the end bit, about whether or not good handwriting is important, to be very interesting.

One unusual man, a Cherokee, wanting to preserve the history of his people, (and not just the white man's version) designed an alphabet. Or rather, a syllabary. (It's shown at the back of the book). Sequoyah: the Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing, by James Rumford is a bi-lingual biography. The translation is by Anna Sixkiller Huckaby. This is a biography written for children and is a nice introduction to Sequoyah.

If you think a book on punctuation has to be dull, think again. :-) Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by Mary Norris is sure to give you a chuckle as you learn about the proper use of commas, dashes and so on. The chapter about pencils though, was my favorite.

Reading Hermit With Dog