胡适留学日记卷十二四、西人对句读之重视

卷十二四、西人对句读之重视

　　（五年一月四日）

　　Punctilious Punctuation

　　Talking of the supreme importance of the comma, a correspondent states that Thomas Campbell once walked six miles to a printing office to have a comma in one of his poems changed into a semicolon. There is a remarkable resemblanee between this and the story of Sir William Hamilton, Astronomer Royal of Ireland, making a lengthy expedition to Dublin to have a semi-colon substituted for a colon.

　　——London Evening Standard

　　〔中译〕

　　谨小慎微之句读

　　言及逗号之重要性，有一位记者报道：托马斯·坎贝尔曾经步行六英里，去一家印刷所，为的是要将他一篇诗作中之一逗号改成分号。另有一件事与此极其类似。爱尔兰皇家天文学家维廉·哈密顿爵士也曾长途跋涉，去都柏林，为的是要将一分号改为冒号。

　　——《伦敦标准晚报》

　　此二则甚有趣。人之视句读如是其重也！此与“吟成一个字，捻断几根髭”，同一精神，同一作用。

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