Where does punctuation come from?!

In this episode I trace the punctuation we use every day as far back as I can.
❓Is the question mark actually a word?
❗️Where did the exclamation mark come from?
🔴 Is the full stop the oldest punctuation?
🏛️ What punctuation did the Romans use?
These questions answered and more as we explore the origins of punctuation.

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== SOME RESOURCES ==

==CHAPTERS==
0:00 Introduction
0:10 The space between words
1:34 What is punctuation?
2:04 The first punctuation
2:54 Period/full (.) stop & comma (,)
5:11 Colon (:) & semicolon (;)
6:57 NordVPN
7:55 Question mark (?)
10:12 Exclamation mark/point (!)
11:47 Quotation marks (")
13:50 Brackets (())
14:57 Dash (–) & hyphen (-)
16:00 Apostrophe (')
17:28 Ellipsis (...)
18:40 MERCH!

[tolyo]

3:22 "You see, they'd written this book called the Bible and it was like a Bible to them" this sounds so much like a Jay Foreman joke

[RussellFlowers]

That was such a slick segue into the sponsor that I didn't fast forward over the ad.

[TheSoonyGirl]

In 1994 I didn’t want to go to school, but in 2024 I spend all day watching Robswords! ❤

[SEThatered]

Every video RobWords releases is a treat to me.
The writing, editing, composition and his rhetorical skills are simply superb.
The world stops existing for me while I watch it.

[riggerthegeek]

It is amazing to think that a space had to be invented

[Nosonuk]

I remember a while ago Microsoft Word had a conflict between the grammar checker and the spell checker.
If you typed "crosschecked", the spell checker said it should be hyphenated. If you typed "cross-checked", the grammar checker said it should be one word!

[Itisstillok]

I came because of the intriguing topic, i stayed because of the incredible presentation of the topic, charisma, humor, editing, and graphic component

[cogspace]

> Ancient scribes used this shape to mark important text, especially quotes
> Email ends up reinventing the same thing
> That gets inherited into imageboards as "greentext"
> Now it's in Markdown, which everyone is learning because of Discord and other programs
> my face when

[begreat]

6:49 the greatest ad transition of all time

[tophertheth]

18:55 - The semi-colon is also used as a higher-level comma to string along terms that each already include a comma. A first-level and second-level delimiter is required there. He compared peaches, oranges, apples; pecans, peanuts, cashews; herring, sardines, tuna. You could put "and" before the last item in each substring. But writing that using only one level of delimiting ("He compared peaches, oranges, apples, pecans, peanuts, cashews, herring, sardines, tuna") would make it very difficult and, actually, destroys some meaning, because it implies that everything in the list was compared to every OTHER thing in the list, while the version with semi-colons makes it unambiguously clear that peaches were NOT compared to pecans or herring.

[il-dottore]

17:18 Slight correction: Old English's possessive was -es, not just an -s (hund -> hundes, scip -> scipes, Thunor -> Thunres)
The apostrophe likely came from abbreviating out that E

[berndbrotify]

In German, we still just add an "s" to the end of a name to mark possession. It's just "Peters Haus". However, some time ago people started using an apostrophe there, probably because they learned in their English classes. We actually call this error a "Deppenapostroph" (dorks apostrophe).
The only place where it's actually correct to use an apostrophe to mark possession is, when the name ends in an "s", as we then omit the second "s" and replace it with the apostrophe: "Hans' Haus" instead of "Hanss Haus".

[LinusBoman]

If you made a mug that said "Oh silly apostrophe, what are you doing there?" I would add it to my shopping cart.

[martinbruce]

"It just looks harder than a semi" 6:28

Oh Rob, you sure are excited about colons.

[InigoQuilez]

¿When did the inverted question and exclamation marks got introduced in Spanish? They are really useful, ¡English should adopt them too!

[MeridaBrandybuck]

“‘Multiple exclamation marks, ’ he went on, shaking his head, ‘are a sure sign of a diseased mind.’” – Terry Pratchett

[plankton]

I genuinely find grammar, punctuation and pronunciation way more enjoyable as a subject taught like history or science rather than it being this prescriptive chore or set of rules you have to learn and dutifully follow.

I'm learning a foreign language and it's the approach I want to take.

[prof]

"Plus, what is the dot supposed to represent?" I died!

[connorjames]

10:36 In Japanese, "yo" (よ) is used to add exclaim to a sentence, too.

[lady_draguliana]

"No Photo Available" on aged parchment was hilarious! 🤣