On the Mark

You know the lively exclamation mark, the controversial semicolon, and the often-omitted apostrophe, but would you recognize a percontation point? How about a hypodiastole? In this irreverent and delightfully intellectual book, Florence Hazrat argues that all punctuation marks, from the most forgotten to the most ubiquitous, are worthy of our attention. After all, the history of punctuation is the history of humankind. The first punctuation was lines and notches pressed into clay somewhere in Mesopotamia. Spaces between words were unknown for millennia, until a group of Irish monks pioneered them in the eighth century. Across ages and cultures, amid technological revolutions and radical changes in communication, these dots and dashes have reshaped the societies that created them. From the papyruses of the ancient world to our sprawling internet ecosystem, one thing has remained constant: Punctuation is powerful. These tiny marks can move markets, shift elections, topple political systems, and decide the fate of a precious human life on death row. Weaving together anthropology, the history of writing, the philosophy of language, psychology, literature, and more, On the Mark masterfully proves that punctuation is at the heart of human communication.

Year

2026

Language

English

Publisher

Basic Books

Editions

1

ISBN

9781541606494

Data source: Wikidata