Saturday, June 25, 2016

The Silly Boys' Full Stop. Period.

In 2015 Red Baron wrote about the grocer's apostrophe in English corresponding to an equivalent in German: the Deppenapostroph. At the beginning of this year, I introduced you to the Deppenleerzeichen. Now I like to inform you about the Dumme-Jungen-Punkt. I am curious whether such a superfluous full stop has an equivalent in English. It was first observed in the 19th century in Germany, but it presently seems to celebrate its happy comeback (fröhliche Urständ feiern).

The author of a lexikographieblog found an article published in the late 19th century about the bad habit of placing full stops behind single words:

School. ©lexikographieblog
Die Gründe für dieſerlei Dummheiten bleiben mir verſchloſſen. Mag es die überall ſprießende Engländerei ſein oder trägt der Frantzos die Schuldt daran? Außer Frage bleibt doch, daß nur dumme Jungen in Frage kommen, dieſen Punct ſetzen zu pflegen. Ich tauffe ihn daher auf den Namen: der Dumme-Jungen-Punct; und ich empfehle dem werthen Dr. Duden die Aufnahme dieſes* Ausdruckes in ſein neues Wörtherbuche mit einem abſchreckenden Commentario, alldieweil ich nicht umhin komme, dieſen Punct ſcharf zu verurtheilen (I don't know the reason for this silly stupidity. Is this due to the sprouting influence of the English language or is the Frenchman guilty? There is no question that only silly boys tend to place this period. Therefore I baptize the period the silly boys' full stop; and I recommend to the honorable Dr. Duden (Germany's Webster) to include this phenomenon in his new dictionary together with a deterrent commentary because I cannot help to strongly condemn this full stop).
*Admire the standard round "s" and the German long "ſ" in the word "dieſes."

Ein beſorgter Unterthan (A caring citizen).

So far, so good if it were not for an example seen during my recent trip. In Weimar at the Bauhaus University, I took the following photo:

*

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