No Punctuation Period: Difference between revisions

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[[File:~~punct_1281~~.jpg|frame]]

[[File:punct 1281.jpg|frame]]

{{quote|and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.|'''[[James Joyce]]''', ''[[Ulysses]]''<ref>The final dot is one of the three punctuation signs in the whole ending chapter.</ref>}}

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[[Self-Demonstrating Article|So youve found]] what seems to be a good [[Fanfic]] I mean you havent started reading it yet but its got a good description and better yet your [[OTP]] is in it Of course you have to read it thusly you click on it and beg wait um what is this where are the periods the question marks exclamation points Oh god no commas or colons no no [[Big No|NOOOOOOOOoooooo]]

Alas, you've just stumbled into a relic of the [[No Punctuation Period]], a horrible time in which people apparently forgot how sentences were built. Taken to extremes it can result in a visual [[Wall of Text]], thus adding to its unreadability. Sadly, this happens outside of [[Fan Fics]] too, as many Tropers could tell you. There are a few havens of good style, [[Grammar Nazi|some brave netizens Tropers among them]], who have taken up arms to fight back the [[Serious Business|scourge of illiteracy]].

Alas, you've just stumbled into a relic of the '''No Punctuation Period''', a horrible time in which people apparently forgot how sentences were built. Taken to extremes it can result in a visual [[Wall of Text]], thus adding to its unreadability. Sadly, this happens outside of [[Fan Fics]] too, as many Tropers could tell you. There are a few havens of good style, [[Grammar Nazi|some brave netizens Tropers among them]], who have taken up arms to fight back the [[Serious Business|scourge of illiteracy]].

Often goes hand in hand with [[All Lowercase Letters]]. Has absolutely nothing to do with [[No Periods, Period]] or ''[[Zero Punctuation]]''. Let us mention neither here. Related to [[Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma]].

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* In a wholly justified example, the ancient Romans didn't use punctuation as we know it, so all Latin written in the Classical period would appear this way (including extant inscriptions). As a result, modern-day Latinists can't trust the punctuation that has long since been added to the vast majority of Latin literature which has been transmitted through the centuries via copied and recopied manuscripts.

** For that matter, Greek and the other languages of the day had similar problems. And they did not put spaces between words, either. And [[Rouge Angles of Satin|scribes misspelled or transposed words]]. Let's just say there are a lot of headaches involved with the text of certain works even when they have come down whole.

*** For those who want a bit more concrete an example: [[The Bible|The New Testament]] is, in fact, one of the ''best'' preserved ~~manuscripts -- many~~ copies and fragments of copies have survived, and most of the oldest ones have surfaced in the last century. On a collated ~~text -- one~~ created by combining every copy ~~available -- it~~ is pretty much impossible to find a page where there isn't anything footnoted with an explanation of why they chose the version they did and what the variants were, in space-saving standardized code. (And this is also a text that was usually proofread, as evidenced by some copies having corrections; apparently it was suspected that God might be a [[Grammar Nazi]].) The different readings of punctuation can be important; a significant difference between the Catholic and Protestant churches is derived from whether Jesus said "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise," or "Amen, I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise."

*** For those who want a bit more concrete an example: [[The Bible|The New Testament]] is, in fact, one of the ''best'' preserved manuscripts—many copies and fragments of copies have survived, and most of the oldest ones have surfaced in the last century. On a collated text—one created by combining every copy available—it is pretty much impossible to find a page where there isn't anything footnoted with an explanation of why they chose the version they did and what the variants were, in space-saving standardized code. (And this is also a text that was usually proofread, as evidenced by some copies having corrections; apparently it was suspected that God might be a [[Grammar Nazi]].) The different readings of punctuation can be important; a significant difference between the Catholic and Protestant churches is derived from whether Jesus said "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise," or "Amen, I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise."

*** The King James Version and several other Bible translations have ''a'' whole load of words ''in'' italics, seemingly ''at'' random, because translators added those words to make the text work under English grammar. Some [other] translations use [square] brackets instead to denote insertions. [http://www.biblebelievers.com/jmelton/italics.html Adding these words appears to explicitly endorse one of a range of possible readings of the original text.]

* And all of the above instances can be derived from the fact that true spoken language contains very few punctuation marks anyway. As a test, try recording and transcribing five minutes of casual conversation (especially between children), and try to find where to put the full stops. Alternatively, write a speech, then read it, and [[Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic|try to make it sound natural while maintaining the exact punctuation you used when writing]].