Compound Point

The compound point is an obsolete typographical construction. Keith Houston reported that this form of punctuation doubling, which involved the comma dash (,—), the semicolon dash (;—), the colon dash, or "dog's bollocks" (:—), and less often the stop-dash (.—) arose in the seventeenth century, citing examples from as early as 1622 (in an edition of Othello). More traditionally, these paired forms of punctuation seem most often to have been called (generically) compound points and (specifically) semicolon dash, comma dash, colon dash, and point dash.

Function

Houston, in his book, ''Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks'', suggests that the demise of this form of punctuation may be due to the emergence of hostile style guides:

A note in ''Mechanical Translation and Computational Linguistics'', volumes 4–5 (1957) indicates that compound points were not altogether unheard of even at that date:

The comma dash (,—)

This construction has more rules applied to it than the other constructions. In ''Pens and Types: Or, Hints and Helps for Those who Write, Print, Or Read'', the following was said of the comma dash:

The semicolon dash (;—)

The semicolon dash functions as a standard semicolon; the dash is used for emphasis and pause length. As such, the semicolon dash is grammatically a semicolon, but one with more emphasis or length.

The colon dash (:—)

The colon dash functions as a standard colon, or to indicate a restful pause. It was often used for lists and quoted extracts that started on the next line. This was the case because a lone colon can be easily missed.

The colon dash construction has sometimes been called a dog's bollocks or dog's ballocks, for its phallic appearance. This name appeared at least as early as 1949, as cited by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' and etymologist Eric Partridge.

The stop dash (.—)

The stop dash was used for note constructions, but it was also used to add emphasis to a sentence entirely. As print broker Robert Charles Lee stated: "The idea is to impart the feeling that the narrator is like pointing a finger in a determined manner at 'this thing' under discussion. Or like thumping your fingers on the desk to make your point."

The demise of compound points

What seemed fundamental to good reading in 1839 seemed superfluous to critics less than a century later, at least in the case of comma-dash combinations. From Hugh Paterson, ''Style Manual for Stenographers, Reporters and Correspondents'' (1903):

The continued use of compound points eventually fell into doubt, especially as the timing theory of proper punctuation began losing ground to the sense argument. Benjamin Drew, in ''Pens and Types: Or, Hints and Helps for Those who Write, Print, Or Read'' (1872), notes with approval the rise of this rival theory:

References

{{Creative Commons text attribution notice, url=https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/397864/semicolon-followed-by-a-dash-what-is-it, cc=bysa3, author=StackExchange Contributors

Typography