Search results
Full stop is a British term for a period, used to end sentences or abbreviations. Learn how to use it in sentences, see its history and examples, and compare it with other words.
- History
- Usage
- Punctuation Styles When Quoting
- Spacing After A Full Stop
- Full Stops in Other Scripts
- Unicode
- In Text Messages
- See Also
Ancient Greek origin
The full stop symbol derives from the Greek punctuation introduced by Aristophanes of Byzantium in the 3rd century BCE. In his system, there were a series of dots whose placement determined their meaning.
Medieval simplification
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 time printingbegan in Western Europe, the lower dot was regular and then universal.
Medieval Latin and modern English period
The name period is first attested (as the Latin loanword peridos) in Ælfric of Eynsham's Old English treatment on grammar. There, it is distinguished from the full stop (the distinctio), and continues the Greek underdot's earlier function as a comma between phrases. It shifted its meaning, to a dot marking a full stop, in the works of the 16th-century grammarians. In 19th-century texts, both British English and American English were consistent in their usage of the terms period and full stop....
Full stops are the most commonly used punctuation marks; analysis of texts indicate that approximately half of all punctuation marks used are full stops.
The practice in the United States and Canada is to place full stops and commas inside quotation marks in most styles. In the British system, which is also called "logical quotation", full stops and commas are placed according to grammatical sense:This means that when they are part of the quoted material, they should be placed inside, and otherwise ...
There have been a number of practices relating to the spacing after a full stop. Some examples are listed below: 1. One word space ("French spacing"). This is the current convention in most countries that use the ISO basic Latin alphabetfor published and final written work, as well as digital media. 2. Two word spaces ("English spacing"). It is som...
Greek
Although the present Greek full stop (τελεία, teleía) is romanized as a Latin full stop and encoded identically with the full stop in Unicode, the historic full stop in Greek was a high dot and the low dot functioned as a kind of comma, 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. The teleia should also be distinguished from the ano teleia, which is named "high stop" but looks like a...
Armenian
The Armenian script uses the ։ (վերջակետ, verdjaket). It looks similar to the colon(:).
Chinese and Japanese
Punctuation used with Chinese characters (and in Japanese) often includes U+3002 。 IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP, a small circle used as a full stop instead of a solid dot. When used with traditional characters, the full stop is generally centered on the mean line; when used with simplified characters, it is usually aligned to the baseline. In written vertical text, the full stop is sometimes positioned to the top-right or in the top- to center-middle. In Unicode, it is the U+FE12 ︒ PRESENTATION FORM...
The symbol was encoded in ASCII at 46 (2Ehex), which was inherited by Unicode. All Unicode code points with "full stop" in their name: 1. U+002E . FULL STOP 2. U+0589 ։ ARMENIAN FULL STOP 3. U+06D4 ۔ ARABIC FULL STOP 4. U+0701 ܁ SYRIAC SUPRALINEAR FULL STOP 5. U+0702 ܂ SYRIAC SUBLINEAR FULL STOP 6. U+1362 ። ETHIOPIC FULL STOP 7. U+166E ᙮ CANADIAN S...
Researchers from Binghamton 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: "...
Learn everything you need to know about punctuation in English, including the 14 punctuation marks and their rules. Use Grammarly's free grammar and punctuation checker to eliminate mistakes and improve your writing.
Sep 16, 2022 · Learn how to use periods correctly in sentences, abbreviations, quotation marks, and more. Find out the difference between periods and other punctuation marks like commas and exclamation points.
Full stop, also called period, is a punctuation mark used at the end of sentences or short words. Learn how to use it correctly and see examples of full stop in different contexts.
Full stop, also called period, is a punctuation mark used at the end of sentences or short words. Learn how to use it correctly, see idioms and translations, and compare with other punctuation marks.
Learn the rules and correct usage of a Full Stop (Period), a punctuation mark used to indicate the end of a sentence or an abbreviation. See examples, exceptions, and common mistakes to avoid.
