Tags: #SocialScience/Linguistics/Orthography

Introduction

This article concerns a proposal of mine to introduce the interpunct ( · ) into English punctuation. I will explain how it would work, summarise the issues it addresses, and then briefly mention similar uses that exist currently and/or have existed in the past.

How it works

The interpunct separates a word into parts that are independently pronounced. So "h·e·l·l·o" would be pronounced like the letter sequence "H, E, L, L, O", and something like "hap·py" would be "hap" followed by "py". It’s that simple!

But why?

Pronunciation & Diaeresis

For a start, the interpunct solves the problem of words with implies breaks in pronunciation. The famous example is "cooperate", which looks like "coo-perate" and not the correct "co-operate".

An oft-suggested solution is the use of a diaeresis, resulting in "coöperate". This usage was historically more prevalent, and is still used by some publications.^[1] However, it may be confusing to people speaking languages that use umlaut — a German might read the word as /koˈøpəʁeːt/ instead of /koˈɔpəʁeːt/. It is also asymmetric — why should it be "coöperate" and not "cöoperate"?

An alternative suggestion is a hyphen — "co-operate" — but this makes the word feel like it's been "split in two" (and is often treated as such by software, splitting it across lines).

The interpunct, which gives us "co·operate", solves all of these issues! The use of a dot rather than a hyphen provides the "togetherness" of the diaeresis, while it still has the symmetry of the hyphen.

Some other example words include co·ordinate, re·enter, and in·group. (The word “coefficient” feels more natural without a dot for me, but I find it a grey area.)

Exceptions:

• Foreign loanwords using a diaeresis may continue to use it for consistency, such as Noël instead of No·el, Boötes instead of Bo·otes, and naïve instead of na·ive.
• Personal names using a diaeresis may also keep it for aesthetic purposes: Chloë, Zoë, & Brontë look strange written as Chlo·e, Zo·e, & Bront·e.

Alternatively, if we still wished to avoid confusion with umlaut, we could allow a single dot above to act as diaeresis (note that these do not render correctly on all devices):

• Noėl, Boȯtes, & nȧive / naïve for the loanwords;
• Chloė, Zoė, & Brontė for the personal names.

By (incorrect) analogy with di-aeresis, perhaps we could call the single dot an aeresis?

Acronyms / Abbreviations

Currently, abbreviations and acronyms are marked in many ways.

• Common abbreviations with letters missing in the middle of a word often use an apostrophe: don't, can't, & wouldn't shorten not; but there's also let's, it's, & I'd.
  • A few abbreviations use the apostrophe at the start or end of a word, though these are usually archaic or "grandfathered in" terms. Consider, for example, o' clock and 'tis.
• For Latin abbreviations, full stops are most common: think e.g., i.e., & etc..
• The use of full stops has been extended to most abbreviations, so we get U.K., U.S.A., & U.N., but also things like "trig. substitution" or "calc. 1".
  • Acronyms often use capital letters alone, and drop the full stops — so UK, USA, & UN are all commonly seen. Notably, this (seemingly) doesn't extend to phrases — so EG, IE, & ETC are not common.
• Finally, a few abbreviations (which seem to come from legal jargon?) use slashes — for example, a/k/a (also-known-as) and w/ (with).

While we leave the common abbreviations using apostrophes alone (they are too set in stone to change within reason), we can easily use the interpunct to replace many of the others!

However, we must respect the intended behaviour of the interpunct, and use it only for abbreviations where the parts are individually pronounced! So NASA doesn't get any, since it's pronounced "na-sa" not "N, A, S, A", but U·K or e·g do get them since they're pronounced like "U, K" and "e, g" respectively.

Notice that the final interpunct is dropped as it's not needed here — U·K rather than UK· — but it can be added if it's needed to indicate the abbreviation, like for trig·. This can get messy with other punctuation though; "trig·:" looks like we've invented a whole new punctuation symbol "·:". I'll leave the exact solution here up to the reader's aesthetic preferences.

The abbreviation "w/" is pronounced neither as "double-u" (the letter's name) nor like "wuh" (the letter's standalone phonetic value), but instead just the full word "with". I don’t yet have a solution for such abbreviations, so this is also left to the reader's choice.

Precedent

The interpunct being to split pronunciation (or do something similar) is not unheard of! Here are a few related uses:^[2]

• It is used in Catalan to separate two l’s when they are pronounced as [lː] instead of the usual [ʎ] (like tortilla) — e·g, Paral·lel metro station in Barcelona.
• It is used in Occitan and Franco-Provençal to indicate graphemes pronounced differently than expected. Occitan's use is nearly identical to my suggestion — e·g· they have s·h for [s.h] and sh for [ʃ].

All the more reason to adopt the system! /hj.

Appendix

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day!