A Reflection on Punctuation Marks (201909122140)

I should be working right now, I should be reading, I should be writing--something else--but instead all I can do is think about punctuation marks. Yes, punctuation marks; the class of (non-)signifier that, despite Saussure's identification in "Course in General Linguistics" as equally contingent, as equally arbitrary and significant, as the sign, has remained largely ignored for over a century. One of the few scholars to take up this question, Theodor Adorno--because of course he did--in his almost entirely uncited essay "Punctuation Marks" describes them thus: "There is no element in which language resembles music more than in the punctuation marks" (Theodor Adorno, "Punctuation Marks," _The Antioch Review_, vol. 48, no. 3, Summer 1990, p. 300). For Adorno, punctuation marks are the rhythm and flow of language. But more than that, they are where "history has left its residue..., and it is history, far more than meaning or grammatical function, that looks out at us, rigidified and trembling slightly, from every mark of punctuation" (301). Punctuation marks are where "myth conceal[s] itself" (302). Their conventional uses encode and reproduce (now often marketplace) ideologies which inject meaning through creating syntactic and therefore semiotic boundaries. Thus unfolded, punctuation marks become so problematically significant that "[t]he writer is in a permanent predicament when it comes to punctuation marks; if one were fully aware while writing, one could sense the impossibility of ever using a mark of punctuation correctly and would give up writing altogether" (305). Or perhaps, rather than writing, perhaps what should be given up is the punctuation mark for how necessary is it really How much are punctuation marks really needed to signify To create meaning To trace abstract contours across unfolding dimensions toward wherever we might be led wherever we might lead ourselves Did you know that the modern punctuation mark has its origin in medieval transcriptions of the christian bible Did you know that the original purpose of the first modern punctuation marks was to ensure that the reader would read those holy scriptures as they had been intended to be read Punctuation marks were thus born from what could be arguably called an authoritarian impulse to ensure that signification retained intent that the meaning making of the reader was controlled by the writer that the readers freedom of reading was curtailed Of course you might say that there is nothing inherently authoritarian in delimiting the readers hermeneutic field and perhaps you are right Honestly I dont know I just dont know I think the curtailment the attempt to control the attempt to determine definitively how signification is conceived that I think is authoritarian but there is every possibility I am at least somewhat mistaken Punctuation marks do of course seem certainly useful within certain contexts but within others they seem restricting unnecessary If punctuation marks are where history has left its residue if they are where history looks out at us rigidified and trembling we should ask ourselves what that history is What is the history that stares out at us from the period from the comma from the exclamation or question mark what history are we reproducing For that is what we are doing when we use punctuation marks We are reproducing the history that they contain We are reproducing their structuring of thought their boundaries their preconceptions about the separations between subjects and objects and all that would describe or relate or interact with them And of course we could extend this line of thinking to capitalization too at least in the case of capitalization as the setting off of a new sentence in which case the capital letter essentially becomes its own punctuation mark internalizing the period within itself perhaps even the capital letter is suspect i hope you dont think that i have now devolved into some sort of satire ultimately meant to demonstrate the importance of the punctuation mark far from it i want to explore what it would mean to write without punctuation without capitalization what it would mean to write only signifiers stringing together signifying streams carrying us carrying our thinking beyond bounds traditionally inscribed through convention through expectation through notions of correctness when you think do you think in punctuation marks or do you only think you do i know that i dont think in punctuation marks i dont think in capitalization i think in images melting into words melting into images melting into words melting into images melting into i dont know what and part of the difficulty when i sit down to write is deciding where to put the period where to cluster my words into small individualized units of meaning that somehow encapsulate or at least gesture toward what i had been thinking and it is never that successful because how can it be how can i possibly reduce the conceptual multidimensional hypergeometries that are to me so clear when in my minds eye but become so muddled when imposed upon by that stupid period or whatever i dont expect you to be convinced by this our little experiment if that is you are even still reading but if you are reading i wonder what you are thinking what do you think are signifiers enough can we write without punctuation notice i didnt ask if we could think without punctuation i already think we think without punctuation the question is whether this is a way we might write what abstract realms lie awaiting access through unfolding signification without arbitrary limit what intellectual and creative freedoms beckon or does this way to only madness lead