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# Punctuation personified
- URL: https://proza.site/punctuation-personified/
- Published: 2026-08-19T07:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-14T10:49:33.000Z
- Description: A children’s book from 1824 in which the commas have feelings.
- Author: Daniël van der Winden
- Tags: Notes, Reading

In 1824 a London publisher brought out a small book called *Punctuation Personified*, by the pseudonymous Mr. Stops, in which every mark of punctuation is a character with a costume and a temperament. The full stop is a round, contented face. The colon is a boy with two buttons for a waistcoat. The semicolon is an ensign, flag in hand, pausing only briefly before going on.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/45/4d45fa1c-f938-4ecf-94c1-4a9ee11772aa/content/images/2026/10/stops-period.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/45/4d45fa1c-f938-4ecf-94c1-4a9ee11772aa/content/images/2026/10/stops-colon.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/45/4d45fa1c-f938-4ecf-94c1-4a9ee11772aa/content/images/2026/10/stops-semicolon.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/45/4d45fa1c-f938-4ecf-94c1-4a9ee11772aa/content/images/2026/10/stops-apostrophe.jpg)

Full stop, colon, semicolon and apostrophe, from *Punctuation Personified*, by Mr. Stops, 1824.

It was meant to teach children when to pause and for how long, and the verses that go with each picture count it out: one for a comma, two for a semicolon, three for a colon, four for a full stop. Nobody reads aloud like that now, if they ever did. But the idea underneath is a good one. Punctuation is not decoration. It is timing, and every mark is a small instruction about how long to wait before the next thought.

I have started to notice, when a sentence of mine feels wrong, that it is usually the stops and not the words.