A full stop is frequently used at the end of wordabbreviations—inBritish usage, primarily truncations likeRev., but not aftercontractions likeRevd;[b] inAmerican English, it is used in both cases. It may be placed after an initial letter used to abbreviate a word. It is often placed after each individual letter inacronyms andinitialisms (e.g., "U.S."). However, the use of full stops after letters in an initialism or acronym is declining, and many of these without punctuation have become accepted norms (e.g., "UK" and "NATO").[c] When used in a series (typically of three, anellipsis) the mark is also used to indicate omitted words.
In theEnglish-speaking world, a punctuation mark identical to the full stop is used as thedecimal separator and for other purposes, and may be called apoint. In computing, it is called adot.[3] It is sometimes called abaseline dot to distinguish it from theinterpunct (or middle dot).[3][4]
History
Ancient Greek origin
The full stop symbol derives from theGreek punctuation introduced byAristophanes of Byzantium in the 3rd century BCE inAlexandria.[citation needed] In his system, there was a series of dots whose placement determined their meaning. His three punctuations were these: the end of a completed thought or expression was marked by a high dot˙, called thestigmḕ teleía (στιγμὴ τελεία) or "terminal dot"; the "middle dot"·, thestigmḕ mésē (στιγμὴ μέση), marked a division in a thought occasioning a longer breath (essentially asemicolon); the low dot., called thehypostigmḕ (ὑποστιγμή) or "underdot", marked a division in a thought occasioning a shorter breath (essentially acomma).[5]
The nameperiod is first attested (as theLatin loanwordperidos) inÆlfric of Eynsham'sOld English treatment on grammar. There, it was distinguished from the full stop (thedistinctio) and continued the Greek underdot's earlier function as a comma between phrases.[6] It shifted its meaning to a dot marking a full stop in the works of the 16th-century grammarians.[6] In the 7th century,Isidore of Seville updated the system slightly; he assigned the dots to indicate short., medium· and long· pauses in reading, respectively.[7][8]
Medieval Latin to modern English
In practice, scribes mostly employed the terminal dot; the others fell out of use and were later replaced by other symbols. From the 9th century onwards, the full stop began appearing as a low mark (instead of a high one), and by the timeprinting began in Western Europe, the lower dot was regular and then universal.[5]
In 19th-century texts,British English andAmerican English both frequently used the termsperiod andfull stop.[9][1] The wordperiod was used as a name for what printers often called the "full point", the punctuation mark that was a dot on the baseline and used in several situations. The phrasefull stop was only used to refer to the punctuation mark when it was used to terminate a sentence.[1] This terminological distinction seems to be eroding. For example, the 1998 edition ofFowler's Modern English Usage usedfull point for the mark used after an abbreviation, butfull stop orfull point when it was employed at the end of a sentence;[10] the 2015 edition, however, treats them as synonymous (and prefersfull stop),[11] andNew Hart's Rules does likewise (but prefersfull point).[12] The last edition (1989) of the originalHart's Rules (before it becameThe Oxford Guide to Style in 2002) exclusively usedfull point.[13]
Usage
Full stops are the most commonly used punctuation marks; analysis of texts indicate that approximately half of all punctuation marks used are full stops.[14][15] Some of the usages of full stops are:
Ending sentences
Full stops indicate the end of sentences that are not questions or exclamations. However, according to the 2014University of Oxford Style Guide, a full stop is not to be written if it is followed, or preceded, by an ellipsis.[16]
It is usual in North American English to use full stops after initials; e.g.:A. A. Milne[17] andGeorge W. Bush.[18] British usage is less strict.[19] A few style guides discourage full stops after initials.[20][21] However, there is a general trend and initiatives to spell out names in full instead of abbreviating them in order to avoid ambiguity.[22][23][24]
A full stop is used after someabbreviations.[25] If the abbreviation ends a declaratory sentence, there is no additional period immediately following the full stop that ends the abbreviation (e.g. "My name is Gabriel Gama Jr."). Though two full stops (one for the abbreviation, one for the sentence ending) might be expected, conventionally only one is written.[26] This is an intentional omission, and thus nothaplography, which is an unintentional omission of a duplicate. In the case of an interrogative or exclamatory sentence ending with an abbreviation, a question or exclamation mark can still be added (e.g., "Are you Gabriel Gama Jr.?").[26][27]
According to the Oxford Dictionaries, this does not include, for example, the standard abbreviations for titles such asProfessor ("Prof.") orReverend ("Rev."), because they do not end with the last letter of the word they are abbreviating.[28] In American English, the common convention is to include the period after all such abbreviations.[28]
Acronyms and initialisms
Inacronyms andinitialisms, the modern style is generally to not use full points after each initial (e.g.:DNA,UK,USSR). The punctuation is somewhat more often used in American English, most commonly withU.S. andU.S.A. in particular, depending upon the house style of a particular writer or publisher.[29] As some examples from American style guides,The Chicago Manual of Style (primarily for book and academic-journal publishing) deprecates the use of full points in acronyms, includingU.S.,[30] whileThe Associated Press Stylebook (primarily for journalism) dispenses with full points in acronyms except for certain two-letter cases, includingU.S.,U.K. andU.N., but notEU.[31]
Time
In British English, whether for the12-hour clock or sometimes its24-hour counterpart, the dot is commonly used and some style guides recommend it when telling time, including those from non-BBC public broadcasters in the UK, the academic manual published byOxford University Press under various titles,[32] as well as the internalhouse style book for the University of Oxford,[33] and that ofThe Economist,[34]The Guardian[35] andThe Times newspapers.[36] American andCanadian English mostly prefers and uses colons (:) (i.e., 11:15 PM/pm/p.m. or 23:15 for AmE/CanE and 11.15 pm or 23.15 for BrE),[37] so does the BBC, but only with 24-hour times, according to its news style guide as updated in August 2020.[38] The point as a time separator is also used inIrish English, particularly by theRaidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), and to a lesser extent in Australian, Cypriot, Maltese, New Zealand, South African and otherCommonwealth English varieties outside Canada.
In conversation
In British English, the words "full stop" at the end of an utterance strengthen it; they indicate that it admits no further discussion: "I'm not going with you, full stop." In American English, the word "period" serves this function. Another common use inAfrican-American Vernacular English is found in the phrase "And that's on period", which is used to express the strength of the speaker's previous statement, usually to emphasise an opinion.
In the more prevalent usage in English-speaking countries, as well as in South Asia and East Asia, the point represents a decimal separator, visually dividing whole numbers from fractional (decimal) parts. The comma is then used to separate the whole-number parts into groups of three digits each when numbers are sufficiently large.
1.007 (one and seven thousandths)
1,002.007 (one thousand two and seven thousandths)
1,002,003.007 (one million two thousand three and seven thousandths)
A point used as a thousands separator on a sign in Germany
The more prevalent usage in much of Europe, southern Africa and Latin America (with the exception of Mexico due to the influence of the United States) reverses the roles of the comma and point but sometimes substitutes a (thin-)space for a point.
1,007 (one and seven thousandths)
1.002,007 or 1 002,007 (one thousand two and seven thousandths)
1.002.003,007 or 1 002 003,007 (one million two thousand three and seven thousandths)
To avoid problems with the spaces (such as the potential confusion that could be introduced byline wrapping), another convention sometimes used is to useapostrophe signs (') instead of spaces.
India,Bangladesh,Nepal andPakistan follow theIndian numbering system, which utilizes commas and decimals much like the aforementioned system popular in most English-speaking countries but separates values of one hundred thousand and above differently, into divisions oflakh andcrore:
1.007 (one and seven thousandths)
1,002.007 (one thousand two and seven thousandths)
10,02,003.007 (one million two thousand three and seven thousandths, or tenlakh two thousand three and seven thousandths)
Multiplication sign
In countries that use the comma as a decimal separator, the point is sometimes found as amultiplication sign; for example, 5,2 . 2 = 10,4; this usage is impractical in cases where the point is used as a decimal separator, hence the use of theinterpunct: 5.2 · 2 = 10.4. The interpunct is also used when multiplying units in science—for example,50 km/h could be written as50 km·h−1—and to indicate adot product, i.e., the scalar product of two vectors.
The Serbian standard of Serbo-Croatian (unlike the Croatian and Bosnian standards) uses the dot in the role of the ordinal indicator only past Arabic numerals, while Roman numerals are used without a dot.[citation needed] InPolish, the period can be omitted if there is no ambiguity about whether a given numeral is ordinal or cardinal.[citation needed]
Multilevel numbered headings
In modern texts, multilevel numbered headings are widely used. For example, the string "2.3.1.5" represents a 4th-level heading within chapter 2 (i.e., in the second chapter, the third subsection, the first sub-subsection and the fifth, the sub-sub-subsection).
Logic
In older literature onmathematical logic, the period glyph was used to indicate how expressions should be bracketed, as explained in theGlossary ofPrincipia Mathematica. Full stops can be used as the border oflogical operations to potentially prevent ambiguities; e.g., in⊢: P∈Ω. E!B̌P. ⊃. P∈Ded., full stops are used to separate logical statements.[39]
Computing
"Dot (character)" redirects here. For the fictional character, seeYakko, Wakko, and Dot.
Incomputing, the full point, usually called adot in this context, is often used as adelimiter, such as inDNS lookups, Web addresses,file names and software release versions:
www.wikipedia.org
document.txt
192.168.0.1
Chrome 92.0.4515.130
It is used in manyprogramming languages as an important part of the syntax.C uses it as a means of accessing a member of astruct, and this syntax was inherited byC++ as a means of accessing a member of aclass orobject.[40]Java andPython also follow this convention.Pascal uses it both as a means of accessing a member of a record set (the equivalent of struct in C), a member of an object, and after theend construct that defines the body of the program. InAPL, it is also used for generalisedinner product andouter product. InErlang,Prolog andSmalltalk, it marks the end of astatement ("sentence"). In aregular expression, it represents a match of any character. InPerl andPHP, the dot is thestring concatenation operator. In theHaskell standard library, it is thefunction composition operator. InCOBOL, a full stop ends a statement.
Infile systems, the dot is commonly used to separate theextension of a file name from the name of the file (e.g.,filename.mp4).RISC OS uses dots to separate levels of thehierarchical file system when writing path names—similar to/ (forward-slash) inUnix-based systems and\ (back-slash) inMS-DOS-based systems and theWindows NT systems that succeeded them. InUnix-like operating systems, some applications treat files or directories that start with a dot ashidden. This means that they are not displayed or listed to the user by default. In Unix-like systems andMicrosoft Windows, the dot character represents theworking directory of the file system. Two dots (..) represent theparent directory of the working directory.
Versions of software are often denoted with the stylex.y.z (or more), wherex is a major release,y is a mid-cycle enhancement release andz is apatch level designation, but actual usage is entirely vendor specific.
Telegraphy
The termSTOP was used intelegrams in the United States in place of the full stop. The end of a sentence would be marked bySTOP; its use "in telegraphic communications was greatly increased during the World War, when the Government employed it widely as a precaution against having messages garbled or misunderstood, as a result of the misplacement or emission [sic] of the tiny dot or period."[41]
The practice in the United States and Canada is to place full stops and commas inside quotation marks in most styles.[42] In the British system, which is also called "logical quotation",[43] full stops and commas are placed according to grammatical sense:[42][44] This means that when they are part of the quoted material, they should be placed inside, and otherwise should be outside. For example, they are placed outside in the cases of words-as-words, titles of short-form works and quoted sentence fragments.
Bruce Springsteen, nicknamed "the Boss," performed "American Skin." (closed or American style)
Bruce Springsteen, nicknamed "the Boss", performed "American Skin". (logical or British style)
He said, "I love music." (both)
There is some national crossover. The American style is common in British fiction writing.[45] The British style is sometimes used in American English. For example,The Chicago Manual of Style recommends it for fields where comma placement could affect the meaning of the quoted material, such as linguistics and textual criticism.[46][47]
The use of placement according to logical or grammatical sense, or "logical convention", now the more common practice in regions other than North America,[48] was advocated in the influential bookThe King's English by Fowler and Fowler, published in 1906. Prior to the influence of this work, the typesetter's or printer's style, or "closed convention", now also called American style, was common throughout the world.
Two word spaces ("English spacing"). It is sometimes claimed that the two-space convention stems from the use of themonospaced font ontypewriters, but in fact that convention replicates much earlier typography—the intent was to provide a clear break between sentences.[51] This spacing method was gradually replaced by the single space convention in published print, where space is at a premium, and continues in much digital media.[50][52]
One widened space (such as anem space). This spacing was seen inhistorical typesetting practices (until the early 20th century).[53] It has also been used in other typesetting systems such as theLinotype machine[54] and theTeX system.[55] Modern computer-based digital fonts can adjust the spacing after terminal punctuation as well, creating a space slightly wider than a standard word space.[56]
In other scripts
Greek
ANew Testament manuscript with high dots as full stops
Although the present Greek full stop (τελεία,teleía) isromanized as a Latin full stop[57] and encoded identically with the full stop inUnicode,[5] the historic full stop in Greek was ahigh dot and thelow dot functioned as a kind ofcomma,as noted above. The low dot was increasingly but irregularly used to mark full stops after the 9th century and was fully adapted after the advent of print.[5] The teleia should also be distinguished from theano teleia, which is named "high stop" but looks like aninterpunct, and principally functions as the Greeksemicolon.
Armenian
TheArmenian script uses the։ (վերջակետ,verdjaket). It looks similar to thecolon (:).
Chinese and Japanese
Punctuation used withChinese characters (and inJapanese) often includesU+3002。IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP, a small circle used as a full stop instead of a solid dot. When used withtraditional characters, the full stop is generally centered on themean line; when used withsimplified characters, it is usually aligned to the baseline. In writtenvertical text, the full stop is sometimes positioned to the top-right or in the top- to center-middle. In Unicode, it is theU+FE12︒PRESENTATION FORM FOR VERTICAL IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP.
Anˈarat nettib written in an Amharic inscription that commemoratedYohannes IV's call to arms
In theGe'ez script that is used to writeAmharic and several other Ethiopian and Eritrean languages, the equivalent of the full stop following a sentence is the "ˈarat nettib" (U+1362።ETHIOPIC FULL STOP), which meansfour dots. The two dots on the right are slightly ascending from the two on the left, with space in between.
Brahmic scripts
Nagari
Indo-Aryan languages predominantly useNagari-based scripts. In theDevanagari script that is used to write languages likeHindi,Maithili,Nepali, etc., a vertical lineU+0964।DEVANAGARI DANDA is used to mark the end of a sentence. It is known aspoorna viraam (full stop). InSanskrit, the additional symbol of two vertical linesU+0965॥DEVANAGARI DOUBLE DANDA is used to mark the end of a poetic verse. However, some languages that are written in Devanagari use the Latin full stop, such asMarathi.
In theEastern Nagari script used to write languages likeBangla andAssamese, the same vertical line ("।") is used for a full stop, known asDaa`ri in Bengali. Also, languages likeOdia andPanjabi (which respectively useOriya andGurmukhi scripts) use the same symbol. Inspired fromIndic scripts, theSantali language also uses a similar symbol inOl Chiki script:U+1C7E᱾OL CHIKI PUNCTUATION MUCAAD to mark the end of a sentence. Similarly, it also usesU+1C7F᱿OL CHIKI PUNCTUATION DOUBLE MUCAAD to indicate a major break, like the end of a section, although rarely used.
Sinhalese
InSinhala, a symbol calledkundaliyaU+0DF4෴SINHALA PUNCTUATION KUNDDALIYA was used before the colonial era. Latin full stops were later introduced into theSinhalese script after the introduction of paper due to the influence of European languages.
Southeast Asian
InBurmese script, the symbolU+104B။MYANMAR SIGN SECTION is used as a full stop. However, inThai, no symbol corresponding to the full stop is used asterminal punctuation. A sentence is written without spaces and a space is typically used to mark the end of a clause or sentence.
Tibetic
TheTibetan script uses two different full stops:tshig-grub (U+0F0D།TIBETAN MARK SHAD) marks the end of a section of text, while thedon-tshan (U+0F0E༎TIBETAN MARK NYIS SHAD) is used to mark the end of a whole topic. The descendants of Tibetic script also use similar symbols: For example, theRóng script of theLepcha language uses᰻ and᰼ (U+1C3B᰻LEPCHA PUNCTUATION TA-ROL andU+1C3C᰼LEPCHA PUNCTUATION NYET THYOOM TA-ROL). However, due to the influence of theBurmese script, theMeitei script of theManipuri language usesU+AAF0꫰MEETEI MAYEK CHEIKHAN for a comma andU+ABEB꯫MEETEI MAYEK CHEIKHEI to mark the end of a sentence.
Shahmukhi
ForIndo-Aryan languages which are written inNastaliq, likeKashmiri,Panjabi,Saraiki andUrdu, a symbol calledk͟hatma (U+06D4۔ARABIC FULL STOP) is used as a full stop at the end of sentences and in abbreviations. The symbol (۔) looks similar to a lowereddash (–).
Researchers fromBinghamton University performed a small study, published in 2016, on young adults and found that text messages that included sentences ended with full stops—as opposed to those with no terminal punctuation—were perceived as insincere, though they stipulated that their results apply only to this particular medium of communication: "Our sense was, is that because [text messages] were informal and had a chatty kind of feeling to them, that a period may have seemed stuffy, too formal, in that context," said head researcher Cecelia Klin.[59] The study did not find handwritten notes to be affected.[60]
A 2016 story by Jeff Guo inThe Washington Post stated that the line break had become the default method of punctuation in texting, comparable to the use of line breaks in poetry, and that a period at the end of a sentence causes the tone of the message to be perceived as cold, angry orpassive-aggressive.[61]
According to Gretchen McCulloch, an internet linguist, using a full stop to end messages is seen as "rude" by more and more people. She said this can be attributed to the way we text and use instant messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. She added that the default way to break up one's thoughts is to send each thought as an individual message.[62]
See also
Look upfull stop in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
^This sentence-ending use, alone, defines the strictest sense offull stop. Althoughfull stop technically applies only when the mark is used to end a sentence, the distinction—drawn since at least 1897[1]—is not maintained by all modern style guides and dictionaries.
^Fowler'sModern English Usage is prescriptive: abbreviations formed by dropping the end of a word are properly given a period, but doing the same to those where some portion of the middle is dropped, "is ill advised".[2]
^Burchfield, R. W. (2010) [1998]. "full stop".Fowler's Modern English Usage (Revised 3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 317–318.ISBN978-0-19-861021-2.
^Butterfield, Jeremy (2015). "full stop".Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 331–332.ISBN978-0-19-966135-0.
^Waddingham, Anne (2014). "4.6: Full point".New Hart's Rules. Oxford University Press. p. 81.ISBN978-0-19-957002-7. Essentially the same text is found in the previous edition under various titles, includingNew Hart's Rules,Oxford Style Manual, andThe Oxford Guide to Style.
^Barden, Cindy (2007).Grammar Grades. Vol. 4–5. p. 9.Use a period after a person's initials. Examples: A. A. Milne ... L.B.Peep W157 ... Use Periods With Initials Name. Initials are abbreviations for parts of a person's name. ... Date: Add periods at the ends of sentences, after abbreviations, and after initials
^Blakesley, David; Hoogeveen, Jeffrey Laurence (2007).The Brief Thomson Handbook. p. 477.Use periods with initials: George W. Bush ... Carolyn B. Maloney
^Knuth, Donald Ervin (2016)."Let's celebrate everybody's full names".Recent News.Archived from the original on 2018-01-22. Retrieved2020-07-30.One of the delights ofWikipedia is that its biographies generally reveal a person's full and complete name, including the correct way to spell it in different alphabets and scripts. ... When I prepared the index ... ofThe Art of Computer Programming, I wanted to make it as useful as possible, so I spent six weeks compiling all of the entries. In order to relieve the tedium of index preparation, and to underscore the fact that my index was trying to be complete, I decided to include the full name of every author who was cited, whenever possible. ... Over the years, many people have told me how they've greatly appreciated this feature of my books. It has turned out to be a beautiful way to relish the fact that computer science is the result of thousands of individual contributions from people with a huge variety of cultural backgrounds. ... TheAmerican Mathematical Society has just launched a great initiative by which all authors can now fully identify themselves ... I strongly encourage everybody to document their full names
^"Initialisms".OxfordDictionaries.com. Oxford University Press. 2017. "Abbreviations" section. Archived fromthe original on 2011-12-16. Retrieved2017-10-11.
^Trask, Larry (1997)."The Colon".Guide to Punctuation. University of Sussex.Archived from the original on 2013-08-05. Retrieved2013-08-21.
^"BBC News Style Guide". BBC.Archived from the original on 2022-02-16. Retrieved2022-04-01.Numbers ... time references ... Hours: We use the 24-hour clock (with a colon) in all circumstances (including streaming), labelled GMT or BST as appropriate.
^Whitehead, Alfred North; Russell, Bertrand (1927) [originally published in 1910].Principia Mathematica. Cambridge University Press. p. 10.
^"Style Guide"(PDF).Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies. Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies,University of Aberdeen. 2008. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2011-04-10. Retrieved2015-09-15.Punctuation marks are placed inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation; this system is referred to as logical quotation.
^Butcher, Judith; Drake, Caroline; Leach, Maureen (2006).Butcher's Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Copy-editors and Proofreaders. Cambridge University Press. p. 273.ISBN978-0-521-84713-1.
^Wilbers, Stephen."Frequently Asked Questions Concerning Punctuation".Archived from the original on 2018-06-13. Retrieved2015-09-10.The British style is strongly advocated by some American language experts. In defense of nearly a century and a half of the American style, however, it may be said that it seems to have been working fairly well and has not resulted in serious miscommunication. Whereas there clearly is some risk with question marks and exclamation points, there seems little likelihood that readers will be misled concerning the period or comma. There may be some risk in such specialized material as textual criticism, but in that case author and editors may take care to avoid the danger by alternative phrasing or by employing, in this exacting field, the exacting British system. In linguistic and philosophical works, specialized terms are regularly punctuated the British way, along with the use of single quotation marks. [quote attributed to Chicago Manual of style, 14th ed.]
^Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2003. pp. 6.8 – 6.10.ISBN0-226-10403-6.According to what is sometimes called the British style (set forth in The Oxford Guide to Style [the successor to Hart's Rules]; see bibliog. 1.1.]), a style also followed in other English-speaking countries, only those punctuation points that appeared in the original material should be included within the quotation marks; all others follow the closing quotation marks. ... In the kind of textual studies where retaining the original placement of a comma in relation to closing quotation marks is essential to the author's argument and scholarly integrity, the alternative system described in 6.10 ['the British style'] could be used, or rephrasing might avoid the problem.
^Einsohn, Amy (2006).The Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications (2nd ed.). Berkeley / Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 113.ISBN978-0-520-24688-1.
^Felici, James (2003).The Complete Manual of Typography: A Guide to Setting Perfect Type. Berkeley: Peachpit Press. p. 80.ISBN0-321-12730-7.;Bringhurst, Robert (2004).The Elements of Topographic Style (3.0 ed.). Washington / Vancouver: Hartley & Marks. p. 28.ISBN0-88179-206-3.
^Mergenthaler Linotype Company (1940).Linotype Keyboard Operation: Methods of Study and Procedures for Setting Various Kinds of Composition on the Linotype. Mergenthaler Linotype Company.ASINB000J0N06M. Cited in:Simonson, Mark (2004-03-05)."Double-spacing after Periods".Typophile. Archived fromthe original on 2010-01-20. Retrieved2010-04-05.
^Gunraj, Danielle; Drumm-Hewitt, April; Dashow, Erica; Upadhyay, Sri Siddhi; Klim, Celia (February 2016) [2015]. "Texting insincerely: The role of the period in text messaging".Computers in Human Behavior.55:1067–1075.doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.11.003.
