ABSTRACT
OVER-PUNCTUATION AND under-punctuation, or overstepping and understopping, form the extremes of the two systems known either as heavy and light punctuation or as full and slight punctuation (the Fowler brothers’ dichotomy), or again-though perhaps rather in the United States than in the British Commonwealth of Nations-as close and open punctuation, are analogous to industrial overproduction and under-production. Neither fault is quite so easy to avoid as, by those who rarely have to punctuate and never have to produce, we are told it is.
