This question started as an argument about whether an apostrophe was or was 
not a punctuation mark.   I have found people's opinions coalesce around one of 
three definitions:

(a)   any mark other than a letter or number is a punctuation mark

(b)   any mark other than a letter or number that is used in written texts to 
indicate a pause in the spoken performance of the text is a punctuation mark

(c)   something in between; for example (a) minus the marks on top of the 
numbers on most keyboards (but including exclamation points even it they appear 
on top of the number 1 on the keyboard), or (b) plus hyphens and dashes and 
maybe slashes.

One friend says that punctuation started as the dots writers of Old Hebrew 
inserted in texts to indicate where vowels would go.

Another friend raised this issue: if the important quality of a punctuation 
mark is that it indicates pauses or boundaries, would a capital letter 
indicating the beginning of a sentence be a punctuation mark?   And what about 
parentheses?

This is about as far as I've gotten with my friends--who are becoming a 
little impatient with the discussion--so I thought I would see if there are any 
takers on the "list."



Peter Adams

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