Mr. Theodore L. De Vinne, the founder of the well-known De Vinne Press, published his “Correct Composition” in 1901. This work is indeed a treatise, but a treatise on printing, not on punctuation. Its treatment of punctuation is somewhat iconoclastic, radically so at points. Some of its rules are excellent, but others are well-nigh incomprehensible.
The University of Chicago Press issued its “Manual of Style” in 1906, and its “Manual for Writers” in 1913. The latter work is edited by Professor John Matthews Manly, head of the Department of English in the University of Chicago, and Mr. John Arthur Powell, of the University of Chicago Press. These Manuals, in their treatment of punctuation, are practically identical, and each devotes less than thirty pages to the subject. Their rules are brief, clear, and comprehensive; but their inconsistencies in the use of marks are so great as to be exceedingly puzzling.
The Riverside Press, which for many years maintained the reputation of being one of the three or four most painstaking printing establishments in the world, recently issued a small “Handbook of Style,” setting forth the style in use by that Press; but it also contains many errors and inconsistencies in punctuation, which lessen its value.
I have assumed, for several reasons, the seeming impropriety of criticising the above books: (1) they are recognized as the best authorities on the conventional use of marks, I acknowledge my indebtedness to them, and I show my appreciation of them by quoting no others in my discussion of the subject; (2) criticism of usage by any other class of writers is worthless; (3) my own work, if it will not stand comparison with the above-named works, has no value, and I invite such comparison by my specific criticism of some of their examples which exhibit the fundamental principles of punctuation.
In no work known to me has an attempt been made to show the sense relations between parts of language with such relations indicated by marks, themselves differentiated by these sense relations. A single illustration will serve to show the truth of this broad assertion concerning the sense relations between groups of words determined by marks, yet not recognized by writers on punctuation. Practically all such writers use a comma after _etc._, the comma of course following the period. The two Manuals of the University of Chicago Press and the Handbook of The Riverside Press specifically name this as the proper punctuation. That such punctuation disregards the sense relations determined by the meaning of language, is proved, I think, beyond question by illustrative Sentence 7-1 herein.