FEAR OF PUNCTUATION.
Lork Sankey, who sent back the draft of a bill containing « 000-word sentence without a punctuation mark with a suggestion that at leaet two commas should be inserted, would not have had his request granted a century ago. Until 1830 all Acts of Parliament consisted, in theory at least, of one sentence. In that year a special statute had to be passed in order to allow the texture of legislative enactments to be punctuated. Even then legislative practice was not followed by lawyers in ordinary legal documents, for etops and comma's, they argued, were highly dangerous. To this day no lawyer use* any punctuation mark that can be avoided.
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Bibliographic details
Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 151, 27 June 1940, Page 10
Word Count
112FEAR OF PUNCTUATION. Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 151, 27 June 1940, Page 10
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