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The comma , of Latin virgula (“small baquette” or “small rod”), is a Punctuation mark.

Linguistics and typography

In Typography, the comma is an allowing sign of Ponctuation, the origin, to insert a breathing in the sentence. Like all the other punctuations, it gained in the written language a multitude of roles which the oral language would not simply express by the pause.

It structure, for example, the construction of the sentence, that it is while binding (connector role) or by separating the syntactic groups (in the case of incidental clauses). For example, in an enumeration, the comma separates the enumerated terms, except in French for the last, which is not preceded by a comma when it is preceded by a conjunction (for example and ). The abbreviation etc. - and will cætera (“and all the remainder”) - is necessarily preceded by a comma. It is seen, these rules belong as much to the notation of the oral language as to syntax and the Orthotypographie.

A form of fallen through comma

In 1856, certain a P. the Villette wrote a “Treaty reasoned of punctuation”, a small booklet of 64 pages and suggested a “comma of exclamation” or “exclamative Virgule”, which is a Point exclamation whose comma replaces the not. The Villette gives name only of “new sign”, but its typographical translation is limpid, its very clear use: it is in particular a question of putting an end to the “poetic license” which consisted in putting a Bas-de-casse after a point of exclamation.

In mathematics and in the writing of the numbers

In the writing of the numbers, the comma can be used as separating decimal: according to resolution 7 of 9th CGPM (, 1948) and resolution 10 of 22e CGPM (, 2003), the not (known as “British point”) as the comma can be used as decimal separator, according to the local use (the use in France being to use the comma).

In English, one formerly used the comma to separate the groups of three digits (thousands, million…) within a number; this use was invalidated by the CGPM, it is necessary to use in the place a Nonbreaking space. For example, before 1948, “ one million three hundred thousand twenty two ” could be written in English “1,300,022”; since 1948, it must be written “1 300 022”.

See also Wikipédia: Conventions concerning the numbers.

Data processing

to supplement Floating decimal point & Fixed point

In Smalltalk, the comma is not a syntactic element. It is a binary message which allows concaténer collections.

Homonymy

Cartoon

Virgule of Quotation mark is elected heart of Achille Talon.

Natural history

Virgule is the other name of the coma, a butterfly of Hesperiidae.

references

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