Of the impossibility of imposing rules on an unruly system. 

Are you a stickler when it comes to grammar or punctuation? Then don't listen to this one. 

Some thoughts in defence of an expansive sense of language (read, in defence of mistakes and ambiguity).

I continue the long second part of the history of punctuation, exploring mini-biographies of the parenthesis, ellipses (DOT DOT DOT), and quotation marks. From the Renaissance, I also rush through to the present day, touching on digital punctuation. But that's for another episode!

Apostrophe, semi-colon, comma, parentheses, ellipses, quotation marks -- six marks and counting within 200 years. How come there is an explosion of punctuation marks in between 1400 and 1600? What were the intellectual and technological factors accounting for such a boom? 

This is part 1 of part 2 of the history of punctuation -- I realized part is a long history, so there are two parts of part 2!

In the beginning there was the word, ANDTHEWORDWASWRITTENLIKETHAT -- and nobody was able to read at first sight!

In this episode, we explore why the Greeks and Romans were bad at punctuation, and how bunch of monks from Ireland invented the single most useful element of punctuation: white space.