Marks in Grammar and Printing
Printers' marks on the first page of a sheet are called Signatures. (See Letters At Foot Of Page.)
Serifs are the strokes which finish off Roman letters, top and
bottom. A, B, C, are “block” letters, or “sans serifs.” over the second of two vowels, as aërial, is called “diæresis,” and
in French, trema.
' An acute accent. In Greek it indicates a rise in the voice. It was
not used till Greek became familiar to the Romans.
` A grave accent. In Greek it indicates a fall of the voice. It was
not used till Greek became familiar to the Romans.
over a vowel, as ö, ii, is called in German zwerpunct.
over a vowel, as a, is called in Danish umlauf.
A circumflex over the letter n (as Oñoro, in Spanish,
is called a tilde (2 syl.). A circumflex in French indicates
that a letter has been abstracted, as être for “estre.”
t between two hyphens in French, as parle-t-il? is called “
t ephelcystic. ” (See N.)
The Tironian sign (q.v.). (See And.)—Hyphen, as
horse-guards.
—joining a pronoun to its verb in French, as irai-je,
donnait-on, is called le trait d'union. , under the letter
c in French, is called a cedilla, and indicates that the letter =
s. (See Printers Marks.) A pilcrow, to call attention to a
statement.
A blind P, marks a new paragraph indirectly connected with preceding
matter. () Called parentheses, and
[] Called brackets, separate some explanatory or collateral
matter from the real sequence. is a comma; ; is a semicolon; : is a
colon; . is a point or full stop.—or ... in the middle or at the end
of a sentence is a break, and shows that something is
suppressed.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894 More on Marks in Grammar and Printing from Infoplease:
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