Proper Punctuation

To the Editor:

I think we all ought to take time to com­mem­o­rate the sub­tleties of punc­tu­a­tion. Inter­net cor­re­spon­dence has cav­a­lierly reduced it to an adopted lin­guis­tic device, a mere sig­ni­fi­ca­tion of speech.

Yet punc­tu­a­tion has the pos­si­bil­ity to be so much more; to appro­pri­ate T. S. Eliot’s descrip­tion of the end of the world, it can con­clude one’s thoughts “not with a bang but a whimper.”

It is the rem­nant of a gen­tler world, and its revival and its cel­e­bra­tion can only be enrich­ing for mod­ern society.

Alexan­dra Buder Shapiro
Philadelphia

Note: This let­ter was pub­lished here, and it is in response to this arti­cle.