Editing Colon (punctuation) (section)

==History==
{{Further|Colon (rhetoric)}}
In [[Ancient Greek]], in [[rhetoric]] and [[Meter (poetry)|prosody]], the term {{wikt-lang|grc|κῶλον}} (''{{transliteration|grc|kôlon}}'', {{Literal translation}} 'limb, member of a body') did not refer to punctuation, but to a member or section of a complete thought or passage; see also ''[[Colon (rhetoric)]]''. From this usage, in [[palaeography]], a colon is a clause or group of clauses written as a line in a [[manuscript]].<ref name=oed>''Oxford English Dictionary'', 1st ed. "colon, ''n.<sup>2</sup>''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1891.</ref>

In the 3rd century BC, [[Aristophanes of Byzantium]] is alleged to have devised [[Greek punctuation|a punctuation system]], in which the end of such a {{transliteration|grc|kôlon}} was thought to occasion a medium-length breath, and was marked by a [[interpunct|middot]] {{char|[[·]]}}. In practice, evidence is scarce for its early usage, but it was revived later as the ''[[ano teleia]]'', the [[modern Greek]] [[semicolon]].<ref name=nicky>Nicolas, Nick. "[http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/punctuation.html Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation] {{webarchive |url=https://archive.today/20120806003722/http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/punctuation.html |date=6 August 2012}}". 2005. Accessed 7 October 2014.</ref> Some writers also used a [[two dot punctuation|double dot symbol]] {{char|⁚}}, that later came to be used as a [[full stop]] or to mark a change of speaker. (See also ''[[Greek punctuation|Punctuation in Ancient Greek]]''.)

In 1589, in ''The Arte of English Poesie'', the [[English language|English]] term ''colon'' and the corresponding punctuation mark {{char|:}} is attested:<ref name=arber>{{cite book |editor1-last=Arber |editor1-first=Edward |editor1-link=Edward Arber |date=1869 |title=The Arte of English Poesie: 1589 |publisher=Alex. Murray & Son |location=London |page=[https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10748543?page=96,97 88] |url=https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10748543 |access-date=2022-10-26 |archive-date=2022-10-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221026184916/https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10748543 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{efn|The work was published anonymously and attributed to [[George Puttenham]] in reprints.{{r|arber}}}}
{{Blockquote|For these respectes the auncient reformers of language, inuented, three maner of pauses [...] The shortest pause or intermission they called ''comma'' [...] The second they called ''colon'', not a peece but as it were a member for his larger length, because it occupied twise as much time as the comma. The third they called ''periodus'', [...]}}

In 1622, in [[Nicholas Okes]]' print of [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Othello]]'', the typographical construction of a colon followed by a [[hyphen]] or [[dash]] to indicate a restful pause is attested.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=McMillin |editor1-first=Scott |date=2001 |title=The first quarto of Othello |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=United Kingdom |isbn=978-0-521-56257-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/firstquartoofoth0000shak/page/22 22] |url=https://archive.org/details/firstquartoofoth0000shak}}</ref> This construction, known as the ''[[dog's bollocks (typography)|dog's bollocks]]'', was once common in [[British English]], though this usage is now discouraged.<ref name=dean>{{cite web |last1=Dean |first1=Paul |date=25 April 2008 |title=Extreme Type Terminology Part 4: Numerals and Punctuation |url=http://ilovetypography.com/2008/04/25/extreme-type-terminology-part-4/ |website=I Love Typography |access-date=28 November 2014 |archive-date=19 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141119203833/http://ilovetypography.com/2008/04/25/extreme-type-terminology-part-4/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=martens>{{cite web |last1=Martens |first1=Nick |date=20 January 2010 |title=The Secret History of Typography in the Oxford English Dictionary |url=http://bygonebureau.com/2010/01/20/the-secret-history-of-typography-in-the-oxford-english-dictionary/ |website=The Bygone Bureau |access-date=28 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141122150147/http://bygonebureau.com/2010/01/20/the-secret-history-of-typography-in-the-oxford-english-dictionary/ |archive-date=22 November 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=sussex>{{cite web |last1=Trask |first1=Larry |date=1997 |title=The Colon |url=http://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/colonandsemi/colon |publisher=University of Sussex |access-date=28 November 2014 |archive-date=16 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116232539/http://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/colonandsemi/colon |url-status=live}}</ref>

As late as the 18th century, [[John Mason (minister)|John Mason]] related the appropriateness of a colon to the length of the pause taken when reading the text aloud, but [[silent reading]] eventually replaced this with other considerations.<ref>[[John Mason (minister)|John Mason]]'s work, ''An Essay on Elocution'' (1748), notes that "A Comma Stops the Voice while we may privately tell one, a Semi Colon two; a Colon three: and a Period four."</ref>