Hyphen or dash: difference between these characters. From the history of punctuation marks When a dash is put

Goltsova Nina Grigorievna, professor

Today it is difficult for us to imagine that books were once printed without the well-known icons called punctuation marks.
They have become so familiar to us that we simply do not notice them, and therefore cannot appreciate them. Meanwhile punctuation marks live their own lives in the language and have their own interesting history.

In everyday life, we are surrounded by many objects, things, phenomena that are so familiar that we rarely think about the questions: when and how did these phenomena appear and, accordingly, the words that call them? Who is their creator and creator?
Have the words so familiar to us always meant what they mean today? What is the history of their entry into our life and language?

Russian writing, more precisely, the graphic system of the Russian language, can be attributed to such familiar and even to some extent ordinary (due to the fact that we encounter this every day).

The basis of the graphic system of the Russian language, like many other languages, are letters and punctuation marks.

When asked when the Slavic alphabet, which is the basis of the Russian alphabet, arose, and who was its creator, many of you will confidently answer: the Slavic alphabet was created by the brothers Cyril and Methodius (863); the basis of the Russian alphabet was the Cyrillic alphabet; Every year in May we celebrate the Day of Slavic Literature.
And when they appeared punctuation marks? Are all known and so well known to us punctuation marks(period, comma, ellipsis, etc.) appeared at the same time? How did the punctuation system of the Russian language develop? What is the history of Russian punctuation?

Let's try to answer some of these questions.

As you know, in the system of modern Russian punctuation 10 punctuation marks: dot [.], comma [,], semicolon [;], ellipsis […], colon [:], question mark [?], exclamation mark [!], dash [–], brackets [()] and quotes [" "].

The oldest sign is dot. It is already found in the monuments of ancient Russian writing. However, its use in that period differed from the modern one: firstly, it was not regulated; secondly, the dot was placed not at the bottom of the line, but above - in the middle of it; moreover, in that period, even individual words were not separated from each other. For example: at the time the holiday is approaching ... (Arkhangelsk Gospel, XI century). What is the explanation for the word dot gives V. I. Dahl:

“POINT (poke) f., badge from an injection, from sticking to something with a point, tip of a pen, pencil; small speck."

The dot can rightly be considered the ancestor of Russian punctuation. It is no coincidence that this word (or its root) entered the name of such signs as semicolon, colon, ellipsis. And in the Russian language of the 16th-18th centuries, the question mark was called question mark, exclamatory - surprise point. In the grammatical writings of the 16th century, the doctrine of punctuation marks was called “the doctrine of the power of points” or “about the point mind”, and in the grammar of Lawrence Zizanias (1596) the corresponding section was called “On points”.

The most common punctuation mark in Russian is considered comma. This word is found in the 15th century. According to P. Ya. Chernykh, the word comma- this is the result of substantiation (transition into a noun) of the passive participle of the past tense from the verb commas (sya) – "to hook (sya)", "to hurt", "to stab". V. I. Dal connects this word with the verbs wrist, comma, stammer - “stop”, “delay”. This explanation, in our opinion, seems reasonable.

Need in punctuation marks began to be acutely felt in connection with the emergence and development of printing (XV-XVI centuries). In the middle of the 15th century, the Italian typographers Manutius invented punctuation for European writing, which was accepted in general terms by most European countries and still exists.

In Russian, most of the punctuation marks known to us today appear in the 16th-18th centuries. So, parentheses[()] are found in monuments of the 16th century. Previously, this sign was called "capacious".

Colon[:] as a separating sign begins to be used from the end of the 16th century. It is mentioned in the grammars of Lavrenty Zizaniy, Melety Smotrytsky (1619), as well as in the first Russian grammar of the Dolomonos period by V. E. Adodurov (1731).

Exclamation point[!] is noted to express exclamation (surprise) also in the grammars of M. Smotrytsky and V. E. Adodurov. The rules for setting the “surprising sign” are defined in the “Russian Grammar” by M. V. Lomonosov (1755).

Question mark[?] has been found in printed books since the 16th century, however, to express a question, it was fixed much later, only in the 18th century. Initially, in the meaning of [?] there was [;] .

The later characters are dash[-] and ellipsis[…]. There is an opinion that the dash was invented by N.M. Karamzin. However, it has been proven that this sign was found in the Russian press already in the 60s of the 18th century, and N. M. Karamzin only contributed to the popularization and consolidation of the functions of this sign. For the first time, the dash sign [–] under the name “silent woman” was described in 1797 in A. A. Barsov’s Russian Grammar.

Ellipsis sign[…] under the name “precedent sign” is noted in 1831 in the grammar of A. Kh. Vostokov, although its use occurs in the practice of writing much earlier.

No less interesting is the history of the appearance of the sign, which later received the name quotes[" "]. The word quotation marks in the meaning of a musical (hook) sign occurs in the 16th century, but in the meaning punctuation mark it began to be used only at the end of the 18th century. It is assumed that the initiative to introduce this punctuation mark into the practice of Russian written speech (as well as dash) belongs to N. M. Karamzin. Scientists believe that the origin of this word is not fully understood. Comparison with the Ukrainian name paws makes it possible to assume that it is formed from the verb kavykat - "waddle", "limp". In Russian dialects kavysh - "duckling", "gosling"; kavka - "frog". In this way, quotes – „traces of duck or frog legs”, “hook”, “squiggle”.

As you can see, the names of most punctuation marks in Russian are native Russian, and the term punctuation marks itself goes back to the verb punctuate - "stop, delay in motion." The names of only two signs were borrowed. Hyphen(dash) - from it. Divis(from lat. division- separately) and dash (trait) - from French tiret, tirer.

The beginning of the scientific study of punctuation was laid by M. V. Lomonosov in the Russian Grammar. Today we use the "Rules of Spelling and Punctuation", adopted in 1956, that is, almost half a century ago.

Source: Website of the Open International Russian Language Olympiad

Punctuation Marks (1913)

J. A. Baudouin de Courtenay
Selected works on general linguistics: In 2 vols. - M .: Publishing House of Acad. Sciences of the USSR, 1963.
Punctuation marks (pp. 238–239). Published entirely according to the manuscript (Archive of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. 770, op. 3, item 7).

Punctuation marks, elements of writing or written-visual language, associated not with individual elements of the pronunciation-auditory language and their combinations, but only with the division of the current speech into separate parts: periods, sentences, individual expressions, words. There are two main categories of punctuation marks.
1) Some of them apply only to morphology of written speech, i.e. to breaking it down into smaller and smaller parts. These are: dot(.), separating periods or isolated sentences from one another; moreover, it serves as a sign cuts words (b. h. instead of “for the most part”, because instead of “because”, etc.); colon(:), used mainly before the calculation of the individual parts of what was said before the colon, or when a quote is given, i.e. verbatim text previously expressed by another person or by the author himself (see "Colon"); semicolon(;) separates combinations of incomplete [? - nrzb.] sentences or countable parts of a dismembered whole; comma(,) serves to separate from each other sentences that are no longer separable or separate, interstitial expressions, such as the vocative case, word combinations, or even individual words that give a certain shade to this sentence, etc. (for example, thus, however etc.).
This also includes: dividing the book into departments, on the chapters, on the paragraphs(§§), articles...; paragraphs(from the red line); distinguishing features; short lines, dash(tiret), connecting two parts of a compound word; spaces, both larger, between lines, and the smallest, between individual written words; parentheses(), containing words, expressions and phrases, introductory, explanatory, etc.; callouts(*, **, 1, 2...), at the bottom of the pages or at the end of the book, with links or explanations of individual words of the main text.

2) Another category of punctuation marks, also related to the morphology or segmentation of written speech, emphasizes mainly semasiological side, indicating the mood of the speaker or writer and his attitude to the content of what is found in writing. Via quotation marks("") differs someone else's or supposed with the reservation "as if", "so to speak", "say", "they say" from one's own without reservations.
This also includes: question mark(cm.), Exclamation point(cm.). A special sign of irony was also supposed, but so far unsuccessfully. These last signs are associated with a different tone of speech, i.e., they are reflected in the general mental shade of what is pronounced. Of course, morphological punctuation marks (periods, spaces ...) are reflected to a certain extent in pronunciation, especially at a slow pace: pauses, stops, respite.
Special punctuation marks: ellipsis(...) when something is not finished or implied; a dash (-) that replaces an ellipsis, which, especially in fiction, replaces either a comma or brackets, or quotation marks; apostrophe(cm.). Quotes and brackets are placed on both sides of the given - both before and after; exclamation mark and question mark are placed only at the end. The Spaniards, however, mark not only the end, but also the beginning of an exclamation (I!) or a question (??). The system of punctuation marks adopted in Europe goes back to the Greek Alexandrian grammars; it was finally established from the end of the 15th century, especially by the Venetian family of printers Manutius. Different nations have different ways of punctuating, especially the comma. In ancient Indian writing (Sanskrit) there are no our punctuation marks at all; there the words are written together, and the signs / and // separate either individual verses or individual phrases. Previously, in European writing systems, among other things in Church Slavonic, words were written together and without punctuation marks.

Interpunction

Interpunction (lat.) - the theory of use punctuation marks in writing and their very placement. Subject to well-known certain rules, interpuncture makes the syntactic structure of speech clear, highlighting individual sentences and members of sentences, as a result of which the oral reproduction of what is written is facilitated. The term interpuncture is of Roman origin, but the origin of interpuncture itself is unclear.

Whether interpuncture was known to Aristotle is not clear. In any case, the beginnings of it were among the Greek grammarians. The very concept of interpuncture, however, differed from that of modern Greek and Roman grammarians. The interpuncture of the ancients had in mind mainly oratorical requirements (delivering a speech, reciting it) and consisted in setting simple dots at the end of sentences or in the use of paragraphs called lines or verses (versus).

The new interpuncture does not originate from this ancient one, but from interpuncture. Alexandrian era, invented by the grammarian Aristophanes and developed by later ones. By the end of the 8th century according to R. Chr. it had, however, fallen into oblivion to such an extent that Varnefrid and Alcuin, contemporaries of Charlemagne, had to re-introduce it. At first, the Greeks used only one sign - a dot, which was placed at the top of the line, then in the middle of it, then at the bottom. Other Greek grammarians, like Nicanor (who lived a little later than Quintilian), used other systems of interpuncture (Nikanor had eight signs, others had four, etc.), but they all mixed the syntactic side of speech with the logical side and did not work out any definite rules. (See Steinthal, "Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei d. Griechen und Romern", vol. II, Berl. 1891, pp. 348-354).

The same uncertainty prevailed in the Middle Ages, until about the 15th century, when the typographer brothers Manutius increased the number punctuation marks and subjected their use to certain rules. In fact, they must be considered the fathers of modern European interpuncture, in which no significant changes have been made since that time. However, the interpunctuation of various modern European peoples differ in some respects from each other. So, in English, a comma or dash is often placed before and ( and) and is not used at all before relative clauses (as in French). The most complex and most accurate interpuncture is German. Its theory is set out in great detail by Becker ("Ausfuhrliche deutsche Grammatik", 2nd ed., Frankfurt, 1842), and the history and characteristics - by Bieling "a: "Das Prinzip der deutschen Interpunction" (Berlin, 1886).

The Russian interpuncture is a very close cleavage to the German one and presents the same virtues. An exposition of it can be found in Y. Grot: "Russian Spelling". Old Church Slavonic interpunction followed Greek patterns. In Russian interpunction, the following are used punctuation marks: comma, semicolon, colon, full stop, ellipsis, question mark, exclamation point, dash, brackets, quotation marks.

Where the “silent woman” was named, then the “line”, and later the “thought-separating sign” (in A. Kh. Vostokov’s “Abridged Russian Grammar”).

Encyclopedic YouTube

1 / 5

✪ DASH: where, when and why should you bet?

✪ Russian language. Issue 24. Colon and dash in different types of sentences.

✪ Razdіlovі signs. Dash

✪ Video lesson in Russian "Dash in non-union complex sentences" (Grade 9)

✪ Dash in a simple sentence

Subtitles

Usage in Russian

The rules of Russian punctuation and typography mention a single dash sign. In terms of computer technology (which came from English typography), it corresponds to the so-called em dash.

Punctuation

in place of the omitted verb there is before a nominal predicate ( And genius and villainy are two things incompatible); the dash is not put when the verbs of being and movement are omitted: Books on the shelf;
between proper names, the totality of which is called a doctrine, phenomenon, etc. ( Mendeleev-Clapeyron equation; match Kasparov - Karpov);
between common nouns, the combination of which serves as a definition ( teacher-student relationship; problem man - society - nature);
to underline words at the end of a sentence, usually circumstance :( And again the rickshaw wandered along the street - this time to the hotel);
to emphasize opposition ( Terrible, sweet, inevitable, I must / I - throw myself into a foamy shaft, / You - a green-eyed naiad / Sing, splash around the Irish rocks); a dash is not placed before opposing conjunctions a and but(a comma is placed);
in the nominative case of a topic closely related to the main sentence ( Road in the rain - it's not sweet), or in interrogative sentences ( Parapsychology - is it a trick or a reality?);
between homogeneous members when skipping an adversative conjunction ( knowledge of the law is not desirable - a must);
between homogeneous terms to denote a sharp and unexpected transition ( I always wanted to live in the city - and now I'm ending my life in the countryside);
before the generalizing word ( And these trips, and our conversations with her - everything was imbued with aching, hopeless longing.);
after the enumeration, if the sentence does not end with it ( Everywhere: in the club, on the streets, on the benches at the gates, in the houses - there were noisy conversations.);
after an intonation pause The dead lay - and babbled a terrible, unknown speech);
for stylistic purposes after conjunctions and their combinations with particles ( ... lay down on a stone and - fell asleep);
notation of direct speech ( - Exactly what is most natural, - remarked Bol-Kunats, - least of all befits a person);
in the meaning of "from - to" ( train Moscow - Sevastopol; spring - autumn; for the first ten to fifteen years);
specifying ranges of values; in this case, it is not beaten off with spaces and placed close to the numbers ( 1941-1945, 30-40 grams);
in place of the missing members of the sentence and their parts ( All the best for children);
and in other cases, according to the rules of the Russian language.

Typography

A dash should not appear at the beginning of a line, except before the beginning of direct speech (an em dash) and when using dashes as markers for list items (an em dash).

Anglo-American punctuation

Em dash

to indicate a sudden stop to the narrative;
highlighting the introductory sentence;
open range notation (so-called hanging dash) ( John Smith, 1981-);
can be used in the same cases as a colon.

Middle dash

Used to denote ranges and intervals ( June–July 1967, For ages 3–5, New York-London flight), compounds of compound words containing hyphens ( high-priority–high-pressure tasks), and separation of titles in compound titles (usually for music releases and computer games: Rockin' Every Night – Live in Japan; Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening). Sometimes the middle dash is called the en dash.

Digital dash

Used as a separator in numeric expressions (for example, in telephone numbers: 123‒45‒67 ). The width is equal to the number.

Graphic Options

Em dash

Middle dash

Not padded with spaces if used to specify ranges.

In Germany and, in some cases, in Anglo-American typography, it is customary to use a middle dash instead of an em dash, beating it off with spaces ( Wissen einbringen - die ersten Schritte sind ganz einfach!).

Digital dash

Slightly taller than other types of dashes, as the regular dash is aligned at the middle of the height of the lowercase letter, while the numeric dash is at the middle of the height of the digit. Doesn't break off with spaces.

computer set

In foreign (primarily Anglo-American) punctuation and typography, there are several dashes of different sizes and raised above the line to different heights.

Ways to enter the so-called em dash from the keyboard:

Mac: ⌥ Opt + ⇧ Shift + -,
GNU/Linux : ⇧ Shift + Ctrl + U + 2 0 1 4 or Compose + - + - + -. In the layout files for xkb, the character is called "emdash".
Windows - see below.

In computer typing, it is typical to use two hyphens in a row as a surrogate dash ( This phrase is an example of such usage). This is due both to the absence of a dash in many fonts and in the layout (visual) of keyboards, and to the standard service of autocorrection by editors text of a double hyphen on a dash, which significantly speeds up typing. But when typing in programs that do not have autocorrect, such a “dash” remains, and it subsequently has to be corrected manually.

Some word processors provide special ways to enter typographical dashes.

Microsoft Office

In MS Word, you can press Ctrl + Num - for the middle dash (–) and

By the end of the 18th century, the dash was used (Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was the first to use it). Dash (fr. tiret, from tirer to stretch) is one of the punctuation marks used in many languages. The dash was introduced into Russian writing by the writer and historian N. M. Karamzin. Initially, the sign was called a "line", and the word "dash" has been found since the early 1820s. In the rules of Russian punctuation and in domestic typography, a single dash is mentioned. In terms of computer technology, it corresponds to the so-called "em-dash" N.M. Karamzin

There are three types of horizontal dashes: hyphen, en dash, em dash. They are presented in the figure on the right in the order in which they are mentioned. We will immediately stipulate that the underscore sign does not participate in the consideration when typing documents, it is not used, but inherited from typewriters. There is also a minus sign. Its width is equal to the width of the numbers, but it is far from being in all fonts, since it is used only in examples and formulas and is usually replaced by a hyphen (which is completely wrong) or an em dash (which is quite tolerable, given that it is often designed equal to numbers) . There are three types of horizontal dashes: hyphen, en dash, em dash. They are presented in the figure on the right in the order in which they are mentioned. We will immediately stipulate that the underscore sign does not participate in the consideration when typing documents, it is not used, but inherited from typewriters. There is also a minus sign. Its width is equal to the width of the numbers, but it is far from being in all fonts, since it is used only in examples and formulas and is usually replaced by a hyphen (which is completely wrong) or an em dash (which is quite tolerable, given that it is often designed equal to numbers) .

The shortest and, as a rule, the most intense dash. An en dash dash is longer and thinner. Its length almost coincides with the width of the numbers, which is done for the convenience of typing examples and formulas (in most fonts, the numbers are equal in width, which is why, and not all fonts have a special minus sign). A dash is the longest dash. It is significantly wider than any letter, with the possible exception of M and W. The hyphen is the shortest dash. It doesn't break off with spaces. It is used in compound words, when transferring and in the case of designating prefixes, endings, etc. It is wrong to use a hyphen instead of a minus sign and especially instead of a dash. The shortest and, as a rule, the most intense dash. An en dash dash is longer and thinner. Its length almost coincides with the width of the numbers, which is done for the convenience of typing examples and formulas (in most fonts, the numbers are equal in width, which is why, and not all fonts have a special minus sign). A dash is the longest dash. It is significantly wider than any letter, with the possible exception of M and W. The hyphen is the shortest dash. It doesn't break off with spaces. It is used in compound words, when transferring and in the case of designating prefixes, endings, etc. It is wrong to use a hyphen instead of a minus sign and especially instead of a dash.

It is used to indicate numerical intervals. It is possible to use in compound words denoting the route: Minsk-Moscow. It is permissible to use instead of the minus sign. The illustration on the right shows that the use of an en dash is preferred over the commonly used hyphen (below examples). The en dash is also not set off by spaces.

Used as a punctuation mark. It is normal and punctuation. In the first and second cases, the same em dash is used. But in the first case, the dash is broken off with spaces, which improves readability. A punctuation em dash is a dash with pre-designed gaps (half-pleases) on the sides, it does not need to be beaten off with spaces. An ordinary long dash, if it is not provided by the program, should be beaten off with spaces. To improve the quality of layout, you can manually adjust the inter-character spacing, reducing it by half.

A common mistake is using dashes incorrectly. Exception to email rules. Taking into account program restrictions (only a hyphen is available) and the Curier font (monospaced), it became acceptable to use a hyphen instead of an en dash and a minus sign, and two hyphens separated by spaces instead of an em dash (just a hyphen with spaces is possible). In various programs, the “double hyphen” will look different: somewhere it will merge into a kind of em dash, and somewhere there will be an untidy gap between the hyphens.

Of the year

From the history of punctuation marks

Today it is difficult for us to imagine that books were once printed without the well-known icons called punctuation marks. They have become so familiar to us that we simply do not notice them, and therefore cannot appreciate them. Meanwhile punctuation marks live their own lives in the language and have their own interesting history.
In everyday life, we are surrounded by many objects, things, phenomena, so familiar that we rarely think about the questions: when and how did these phenomena appear and, accordingly, the words that call them? Who is their creator and creator?
Have the words so familiar to us always meant what they mean today? What is the history of their entry into our life and language?
To such a familiar and even to some extent ordinary (due to the fact that we encounter this every day) can be attributed Russian writing, more precisely, the graphic system of the Russian language.
The basis of the graphic system of the Russian language, like many other languages, are letters and punctuation marks.
To the question when did the slavic alphabet, which underlies the Russian alphabet, and who was its creator, many of you confidently answer: the slavic alphabet was created by the brothers Cyril and Methodius (863); the basis of the Russian alphabet was the Cyrillic alphabet; Every year in May we celebrate the Day of Slavic Literature.
And when they appeared punctuation marks? Are all known and so well known to us punctuation marks(period, comma, ellipsis, etc.) appeared at the same time? How did the punctuation system of the Russian language develop? What is the history of Russian punctuation?
Let's try to answer some of these questions.
As you know, in the system of modern Russian punctuation 10 punctuation marks: dot [.], comma [,], semicolon [;], ellipsis […], colon [:], question mark [?], exclamation mark [!], dash [-], brackets [()] and quotes [" "].

https://pandia.ru/text/78/123/images/image004_2.gif" align="left hspace=12" width="343" height="219"> The period can rightly be considered the ancestor of Russian punctuation. It is no accident this word (or its root) entered the name of such signs as a semicolon, colon, ellipsis.And in the Russian language of the 16th-18th centuries, the question mark was called the question point, the exclamation mark was the point of surprise.In the grammatical works of the 16th century, the doctrine of punctuation marks was called “the doctrine of the power of points” or “about the point mind”, and in the grammar of Lawrence Zizania (1596) the corresponding section was called “On points”.

The most common punctuation mark in Russian, a comma is considered. This word is found in the 15th century. According to the opinion, the word comma is the result of substantiation (transition into a noun) of the passive participle of the past tense from the verb coma (sya) - “to hook (sya)”, “to hurt”, “to stab”. connects this word with the verbs wrist, comma, stammer - “stop”, “delay”.

https://pandia.ru/text/78/123/images/image006.jpg" align="left" width="178" height="144 src=">
The colon [:] has been used as a separator since the end of the 16th century. It is mentioned in the grammars of Lavrenty Zizaniy, Melety Smotrytsky (1619), as well as in the first Russian grammar of the Dolomonos period (1731).

The exclamation mark [!] is also noted to express exclamation (surprise) in the grammars of M. Smotrytsky and. The rules for setting the “surprising sign” are defined in the “Russian Grammar” (1755).

The question mark [?] has been found in printed books since the 16th century, but to express a question it was fixed much later, only in the 18th century. Initially, in the meaning of [?] there was [;] .

https://pandia.ru/text/78/123/images/image008.jpg" align="left" width="354" height="473 src=">A paragraph or a red line also applies to punctuation marks. The paragraph serves to highlight significant parts of the text, deepens the previous point and opens up a completely new train of thought.

https://pandia.ru/text/78/123/images/image010_0.gif" alt=". , ? ! ... : ; " align="left" width="692" height="116 src="> Yagodina Anastasia, student of the 4A class of the gymnasium No. 1 in Murmansk

Question mark "?"
Exclamation point "!"
Octothorpe or sharp "#"
Semicolon ";"
Parentheses "()"
Tilde "~"
Dot "."
Comma ","
Colon «:»
"$" sign

Question mark "?"

It has been found in printed books since the 16th century, however, to express the question, it was fixed much later, only in the 18th century.

The mark of the sign comes from the Latin letters q and o (quaestio - search [answer]). Initially, they wrote q over o, which then transformed into a modern style.

Exclamation point "!"

The exclamation mark comes from the expression "note of admiration" (a mark of amazement). According to one theory of its origin, it was the Latin word for joy (Io), written with an "I" above the "o". The exclamation mark first appeared in the Catechism of Edward VI, printed in London in 1553.

Doggy, or commercial floor "@"

The origin of this symbol is unknown. The traditional hypothesis is a medieval abbreviation of the Latin preposition ad (means "to", "on", "up to", "y", "at").

In 2000, Giorgio Stabile, a Sapienza professor, put forward a different hypothesis. A letter written by a Florentine merchant in 1536 mentioned the price of one "A" of wine, with the letter "A" decorated with a scroll and looking like "@" according to Stabila, it was an abbreviation for the unit of measure of volume - the standard amphora.

In Spanish, Portuguese, French, the @ symbol traditionally means arroba - an old Spanish measure of weight equal to 11.502 kg (in Aragon 12.5 kg); the word itself comes from the Arabic "ar-rub", which means "a quarter" (a quarter of a hundred pounds). In 2009, the Spanish historian Jorge Romance discovered the abbreviation of arroba with @ in an Aragonese manuscript of the Taula de Ariza written in 1448, almost a century before the Florentine script studied by Stabile.

Signs similar to @ are found in Russian books of the 16th-17th centuries - in particular, on the title page of the Sudebnik of Ivan the Terrible (1550). Usually this is the letter “az” decorated with a curl, denoting a unit in the Cyrillic number system, in the case of Sudebnik, the first point.

Octothorpe or sharp "#"

The etymology and English spelling (octothorp, octothorpe, octatherp) of the word is debatable.

According to some sources, the sign comes from a medieval cartographic tradition, where a village surrounded by eight fields was designated in this way (hence the name "octothorp").

According to other reports, this is a playful neologism of Bell Labs worker Don Macpherson (born Don Macpherson), which appeared in the early 1960s, from octo- (Latin octo, Russian eight), talking about the eight "ends" of the character, and - thorpe referring to Jim Thorpe (an Olympic medalist McPherson was interested in). However, Douglas A. Kerr, in his article "The ASCII Character 'Octatherp'", says that "octatherp" was created as a joke by himself, as well as by Bell Labs engineers John Schaak and Herbert Uthlaut. The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories (1991) gives the spelling "octotherp" as the original, and credits telephone engineers as its authors.

Semicolon ";"

The semicolon was first introduced by the Italian printer Aldo Manutius (Italian: Aldo Pio Manuzio; 1449/1450–1515), who used it to separate opposite words and independent parts of compound sentences. Shakespeare already used the semicolon in his sonnets. In Russian texts, the comma and the semicolon appeared at the end of the 15th century.

Asterisk, or asterisk "*"

It was introduced in the 2nd century BC. e. in the texts of the Library of Alexandria by the ancient philologist Aristophanes of Byzantium to indicate ambiguities.

Parentheses "()"

Parentheses appeared in 1556 with Tartaglia (for a radical expression) and later with Girard. At the same time, Bombelli used the corner in the form of the letter L as the initial bracket, and as the final one in an inverted form (1550); such a record became the progenitor of square brackets. Curly braces were suggested by Viet (1593). Nevertheless, most mathematicians then preferred to underline the highlighted expression instead of brackets. Leibniz introduced brackets into general use.

Tilde "~"

In most languages, the superscript tilde corresponds to a character derived from the letters n and m, which in medieval cursive were often written above the line (above the previous letter) and degenerated into a wavy li
niyu.

Dot "."

“POINT (poke) f., badge from an injection, from sticking to something with a point, tip of a pen, pencil; small speck."

Comma «,»

The most common punctuation mark in Russian is considered comma. This word is found in the 15th century. According to P. Ya. Chernykh, the word comma- this is the result of substantiation (transition into a noun) of the passive participle of the past tense from the verb commas (sya) - "to hook (sya)", "to hurt", "to stab". V. I. Dal connects this word with the verbs wrist, comma, stammer - “stop”, “delay”. This explanation, in our opinion, seems reasonable.

Colon «:»

The later characters are dash[-] and ellipsis[…]. There is an opinion that the dash was invented by N.M. Karamzin. However, it has been proven that this sign was found in the Russian press already in the 60s of the 18th century, and N. M. Karamzin only contributed to the popularization and consolidation of the functions of this sign. For the first time, the dash sign [-] under the name "silent woman" was described in 1797 in the "Russian Grammar" by A. A. Barsov.

Ellipsis sign[…] under the name “precedent sign” is noted in 1831 in the grammar of A. Kh. Vostokov, although its use occurs in the practice of writing much earlier.

No less interesting is the history of the appearance of the sign, which later received the name quotes[" "]. The word quotation marks in the meaning of a musical (hook) sign occurs in the 16th century, but in the meaning punctuation mark it began to be used only at the end of the 18th century. It is assumed that the initiative to introduce this punctuation mark into the practice of Russian written speech (as well as dash) belongs to N. M. Karamzin. Scientists believe that the origin of this word is not fully understood. Comparison with the Ukrainian name paws makes it possible to assume that it is formed from the verb quoting - “waddle”, “limp”. In Russian dialects kavysh - "duckling", "gosling"; kavka - "frog". In this way, quotes - „traces of duck or frog legs”, “hook”, “squiggle”.

As you can see, the names of most punctuation marks in Russian are native Russian, and the term punctuation marks itself goes back to the verb punctuate - "to stop," to delay in motion. The names of only two signs were borrowed. Hyphen(dash) - from it. Divis(from lat. division- separately) and dash (trait) - from French tiret, tirer.

"$" sign
There are many versions of the origin of the dollar, I want to tell you about the most interesting ones.

In one of the first, this symbol is directly related to the letter S. Even the Spaniards, in the era of their colonization, put the letter S on gold bars and sent them from the American continent to Spain. Upon arrival, they applied a vertical strip, and upon sending back - another one.

According to another version, the sign S is two Pillars of Hercules, which are entwined with a ribbon, that is, the Spanish coat of arms, symbolizing power and authority, as well as financial stability and steadfastness. The story goes that Hercules erected two rocks on the shores of the Strait of Gibraltar, in honor of his exploits. But the waves washing the rocks represent the letter S.

Another story says that the sign came from the abbreviation US-United States. But, in my opinion, the most interesting and more common is the story about the origin of writing the monetary unit of the peso. During the Middle Ages in Europe, the most common currency was the Spanish Real. They entered the circulation of England, and were referred to as "peso". In the documents, “peso” was shortened to capital letters P and S. And then to everything, people did not want to spend a lot of time writing letters and replaced the letter P, and only the wand remained, and the symbol was $.

Materials for making common notebooks

Abstract: Improving the budgeting system at the enterprise Principles of the budgeting system