A
Footnote in the Evolution of Punctuation
by Craig Inanen
Once upon a
time (As many stories begin), a very long time
ago (Before the advent of the Electric Boogaloo
and the clickbait headline) a beautiful princess
lived in a far-away land. (It was the other side
of the dark forest, a bit further than the misty
mountains but not quite so far as the Great
Dismal Swamp if you absolutely must know.) She
had flaxen hair. (Or perhaps it was a stunning
shade of auburn. Then again, she might have been
a raven-haired beauty. This information has been
obscured down through the ages, but it doesn’t
make any difference.) She was also blessed with a
winsome smile. (Her teeth were brilliantly white,
and her lips were ruby red, of that there is no
doubt.) She was known far and wide as Princess
Parenthesi.
Princess
Parenthesi was having a difficult time learning
her letters. Her tutor, Miss Spelling, was
constantly saying, “Princess Parenthesi, you
must learn to say what you wish to say when you
wish to say it,” in light of Princess
Parenthesi’s habit of adding a little bit
more after the first part.
“I’m
trying!” the princess told her. (She was
quite frustrated and cross with herself for
continually doing this, spoiling what were
otherwise perfectly good sentences.) “But it’s
hard!”
“Nevertheless,
child, you must perfect that aspect of your
letters or you will be constantly interrupting
people.” (This is annoying and impolite.)
“I will
invent something to keep that from happening!”
the princess exclaimed.
“Silly
child,” her tutor told her. “Little
girls don’t invent things.”
But she did.
She invented a curvy sort of line that bent to
the left and a curvy sort of line that bent to
the right. She called them parentheses and
enclosed all sorts of useful but non-essential
information within them. Learned people use them
to this day. (That’s how the parentheses
were invented and that’s the end of the
story.)
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