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Full stop
Other namesPeriod
U+002E . FULL STOP
HTML .

The full stop (Commonwealth English), period (North American English), or full point . is a punctuation mark used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence (as distinguished from a question or exclamation).[a]

A full stop is frequently used at the end of word abbreviations—in British usage, primarily truncations such as Rev., but not after contractions which retain the final letter such as Revd;[b] in American English, it is used in both cases. It may be placed after an initial letter used to abbreviate a word. It is often placed after each individual letter in initialisms, (e.g., U.S.), but not usually in those that are acronyms (NATO).[3] However, the use of full stops after letters in initialisms is declining, and many of these without punctuation have become accepted norms (e.g., UK and NATO).[c] When used in a series (typically of three, an ellipsis) the mark is also used to indicate omitted words.

In the English-speaking world, a punctuation mark identical to the full stop is used as the decimal separator and for other purposes, and may be called a point. In computing, it is called a dot.[4] It is sometimes called a baseline dot to distinguish it from the interpunct (or middle dot).[4][5]

History

[edit]

Ancient Greek origin

[edit]

The full stop symbol derives from the Greek punctuation introduced by Aristophanes of Byzantium in the 3rd century BCE in Alexandria.[citation needed] In his system, there was a series of dots whose placement determined their meaning. His three punctuations were these: the end of a completed thought or expression was marked by a high dot ˙, called the stigmḕ teleía (στιγμὴ τελεία) or "terminal dot"; the "middle dot" ·, the stigmḕ mésē (στιγμὴ μέση), marked a division in a thought occasioning a longer breath (essentially a semicolon); the low dot ., called the hypostigmḕ (ὑποστιγμή) or "underdot", marked a division in a thought occasioning a shorter breath (essentially a comma).[6]

The name period is first attested (as the Latin loanword peridos) in Ælfric of Eynsham's Old English treatment on grammar. There, it was distinguished from the full stop (the distinctio) and continued the Greek underdot's earlier function as a comma between phrases.[7] It shifted its meaning to a dot marking a full stop in the works of the 16th-century grammarians.[7] In the 7th century, Isidore of Seville updated the system slightly; he assigned the dots to indicate short ., medium · and long · pauses in reading, respectively.[8][9]

Medieval Latin to modern English

[edit]

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 printing began in Western Europe, the lower dot was regular and then universal.[6]

In 19th-century texts, British English and American English both frequently used the terms period and full stop.[10][1] The word period was used as a name for what printers often called the "full point", the punctuation mark that was a dot on the baseline and used in several situations. The phrase full stop was only used to refer to the punctuation mark when it was used to terminate a sentence.[1] This terminological distinction seems to be eroding. For example, the 1998 edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage used full point for the mark used after an abbreviation, but full stop or full point when it was employed at the end of a sentence;[11] the 2015 edition, however, treats them as synonymous (and prefers full stop),[12] and New Hart's Rules does likewise (but prefers full point).[13] The last edition (1989) of the original Hart's Rules (before it became The Oxford Guide to Style in 2002) exclusively used full point.[14]

Usage

[edit]

Full stops are the most commonly used punctuation marks; analysis of texts indicate that approximately half of all punctuation marks used are full stops.[15][16] Some of the usages of full stops are:

Ending sentences

[edit]

Full stops indicate the end of declarative sentences, in contrast to questions or exclamations. The full stop is omitted when adjacent to an ellipsis.[17]

Abbreviations

[edit]
Further information: Abbreviation § Periods (full stops) and spaces

It is usual in North American English to use full stops after initials; e.g.: A. A. Milne[18] and George W. Bush.[19] British usage is less strict.[20] A few style guides discourage full stops after initials.[21][22] However, there is a general trend and initiatives to spell out names in full instead of abbreviating them in order to avoid ambiguity.[23][24][25]

A full stop is used after some abbreviations.[26] If the abbreviation ends a declaratory sentence, there is no additional period immediately following the full stop that ends the abbreviation (e.g. "My name is Gabriel Gama Jr."). Though two full stops (one for the abbreviation, one for the sentence ending) might be expected, conventionally only one is written.[27] This is an intentional omission, and thus not haplography, which is an unintentional omission of a duplicate. In the case of an interrogative or exclamatory sentence ending with an abbreviation, a question or exclamation mark can still be added (e.g., "Are you Gabriel Gama Jr.?").[27][28]

According to the Oxford Dictionaries, this does not include, for example, the standard abbreviations for titles such as Professor ("Prof.") or Reverend ("Rev."), because they do not end with the last letter of the word they are abbreviating.[29] In American English, the common convention is to include the period after all such abbreviations.[29]

Acronyms and initialisms

[edit]

In acronyms and initialisms, the modern style is generally to not use full points after each initial (e.g.: DNA, UK, USSR). The punctuation is somewhat more often used in American English, most commonly with U.S. and U.S.A. in particular, depending upon the house style of a particular writer or publisher.[30] As some examples from American style guides, The Chicago Manual of Style (primarily for book and academic-journal publishing) deprecates the use of full points in initialisms, including U.S.,[31] while The Associated Press Stylebook (primarily for journalism) dispenses with full points in initialisms, including acronyms, except for certain two-letter cases, including U.S., U.K. and U.N., but not EU.[32] Acronyms, which can be pronounced as words, have tended to lose full stops even when they were formerly used; e.g., Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services became Q.A.N.T.A.S., then QANTAS, and ultimately Qantas.[33]

Time

[edit]

In British English, whether for the 12-hour clock or sometimes its 24-hour counterpart, the dot is commonly used and some style guides recommend it when telling time, including those from non-BBC public broadcasters in the UK, the academic manual published by Oxford University Press under various titles,[34] as well as the internal house style book for the University of Oxford,[35] and that of The Economist,[36] The Guardian[37] and The Times newspapers.[38] American and Canadian English mostly prefers and uses colons (:) (i.e., 11:15 PM/pm/p.m. or 23:15 for AmE/CanE and 11.15 pm or 23.15 for BrE);[39] the UK BBC uses only 24-hour times with a colon, since at least the August 2020 update of its news style guide.[40] The point as a time separator is also used in Irish English, particularly by the Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), and to a lesser extent in Australian, Cypriot, Maltese, New Zealand, South African and other Commonwealth English varieties outside Canada.

In conversation

[edit]

In British English, the words "full stop" at the end of an utterance strengthen it; they indicate that it admits no further discussion: "I'm not going with you, full stop." In American English, the word "period" serves this function. Another common use in African-American Vernacular English is found in the phrase "And that's on period", which is used to express the strength of the speaker's previous statement, usually to emphasise an opinion.

Decimal or thousands separator

[edit]

The period glyph is used in the presentation of numbers, either as a decimal separator or as a thousands separator.

In the more prevalent usage in English-speaking countries, as well as in South Asia and East Asia, the point represents a decimal separator, visually dividing whole numbers from fractional (decimal) parts. The comma is then used to separate the whole-number parts into groups of three digits each when numbers are sufficiently large.

  • 1.007 (one and seven thousandths)
  • 1,002.007 (one thousand two and seven thousandths)
  • 1,002,003.007 (one million two thousand three and seven thousandths)
A point used as a thousands separator on a sign in Germany

The more prevalent usage in much of Europe, southern Africa and Latin America (with the exception of Mexico due to the influence of the United States) reverses the roles of the comma and point but sometimes substitutes a (thin-)space for a point.

  • 1,007 (one and seven thousandths)
  • 1.002,007 or 1 002,007 (one thousand two and seven thousandths)
  • 1.002.003,007 or 1 002 003,007 (one million two thousand three and seven thousandths)

To avoid problems with the spaces (such as the potential confusion that could be introduced by line wrapping), another convention sometimes used is to use apostrophe signs (') instead of spaces.

India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan follow the Indian numbering system, which utilizes commas and decimals much like the aforementioned system popular in most English-speaking countries but separates values of one hundred thousand and above differently, into divisions of lakh and crore:

  • 1.007 (one and seven thousandths)
  • 1,002.007 (one thousand two and seven thousandths)
  • 10,02,003.007 (one million two thousand three and seven thousandths, or ten lakh two thousand three and seven thousandths)

Multiplication sign

[edit]

In countries that use the comma as a decimal separator, the point is sometimes found as a multiplication sign; for example, 5,2 . 2 = 10,4; this usage is impractical in cases where the point is used as a decimal separator, hence the use of the interpunct: 5.2 · 2 = 10.4. The interpunct is also used when multiplying units in science—for example, 50 km/h could be written as 50 km·h−1—and to indicate a dot product, i.e., the scalar product of two vectors.

Ordinal dot

[edit]

In many languages, an ordinal dot is used as the ordinal indicator. This applies mostly in Central and Northern Europe: in German, Hungarian, several Slavic languages (Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Serbo-Croatian), Faroese, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian and also in Basque and Turkish. The dots are typically placed after the ordinal number; for example, "7." generally represents the seventh.

The Serbian standard of Serbo-Croatian (unlike the Croatian and Bosnian standards) uses the dot in the role of the ordinal indicator only past Arabic numerals, while Roman numerals are used without a dot.[citation needed] In Polish, the period can be omitted if there is no ambiguity about whether a given numeral is ordinal or cardinal.[citation needed]

Multilevel numbered headings

[edit]

In modern texts, multilevel numbered headings are widely used. For example, the string "2.3.1.5" represents a 4th-level heading within chapter 2 (i.e., in the second chapter, the third subsection, the first sub-subsection and the fifth, the sub-sub-subsection).

Logic

[edit]

In older literature on mathematical logic, the period glyph was used to indicate how expressions should be bracketed, as explained in the Glossary of Principia Mathematica. Full stops can be used as the border of logical operations to potentially prevent ambiguities; e.g., in ⊢: P∈Ω. E!B̌P. ⊃. P∈Ded., full stops are used to separate logical statements.[41]

Computing

[edit]
"Dot (character)" redirects here. For the fictional character, see Yakko, Wakko, and Dot.

In computing, the full point, usually called a dot in this context, is often used as a delimiter, such as in DNS lookups, Web addresses, file names and software release versions:

  • www.wikipedia.org
  • document.txt
  • 192.168.0.1
  • Chrome 92.0.4515.130

It is used in many programming languages as an important part of the syntax. C uses it as a means of accessing a member of a struct, and this syntax was inherited by C++ as a means of accessing a member of a class or object.[42] Java and Python also follow this convention. Pascal uses it both as a means of accessing a member of a record set (the equivalent of struct in C), a member of an object, and after the end construct that defines the body of the program. In APL, it is also used for generalised inner product and outer product. In Erlang, Prolog and Smalltalk, it marks the end of a statement ("sentence"). In a regular expression, it represents a match of any character. In Perl and PHP, the dot is the string concatenation operator. In the Haskell standard library, it is the function composition operator. In COBOL, a full stop ends a statement.

In file systems, the dot is commonly used to separate the extension of a file name from the name of the file (e.g., filename.mp4). RISC OS uses dots to separate levels of the hierarchical file system when writing path names—similar to / (forward-slash) in Unix-based systems and \ (back-slash) in MS-DOS-based systems and the Windows NT systems that succeeded them. In Unix-like operating systems, some applications treat files or directories that start with a dot as hidden. This means that they are not displayed or listed to the user by default. In Unix-like systems and Microsoft Windows, the dot character represents the working directory of the file system. Two dots (..) represent the parent directory of the working directory.

Bourne shell-derived command-line interpreters, such as sh, ksh and bash, use the dot as a command to read a file and execute its content in the running interpreter. (Some of these also offer source as a synonym, based on that usage in the C shell.)

Versions of software are often denoted with the style x.y.z (or more), where x is a major release, y is a mid-cycle enhancement release and z is a patch level designation, but actual usage is entirely vendor specific.

Telegraphy

[edit]

The term STOP was used in telegrams in the United States in place of the full stop. The end of a sentence would be marked by STOP; its use "in telegraphic communications was greatly increased during the World War, when the Government employed it widely as a precaution against having messages garbled or misunderstood, as a result of the misplacement or emission [sic] of the tiny dot or period."[43]

Phonetic alphabet

[edit]

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses the full stop to signify a syllable break.

Punctuation styles when quoting

[edit]
Main article: Quotation marks in English § Order of punctuation

The practice in the United States and Canada is to place full stops and commas inside quotation marks in most styles.[44] In the British system, which is also called "logical quotation",[45] full stops and commas are placed according to grammatical sense:[44][46] This means that when they are part of the quoted material, they should be placed inside, and otherwise should be outside. For example, they are placed outside in the cases of words-as-words, titles of short-form works and quoted sentence fragments.

  • Bruce Springsteen, nicknamed "the Boss," performed "American Skin." (closed or American style)
  • Bruce Springsteen, nicknamed "the Boss", performed "American Skin". (logical or British style)
  • He said, "I love music." (both)

There is some national crossover. The American style is common in British fiction writing.[47] The British style is sometimes used in American English. For example, The Chicago Manual of Style recommends it for fields where comma placement could affect the meaning of the quoted material, such as linguistics and textual criticism.[48][49]

The use of placement according to logical or grammatical sense, or "logical convention", now the more common practice in regions other than North America,[50] was advocated in the influential book The King's English by Fowler and Fowler, published in 1906. Prior to the influence of this work, the typesetter's or printer's style, or "closed convention", now also called American style, was common throughout the world.

Spacing after a full stop

[edit]
Main article: Sentence spacing

There have been a number of practices relating to the spacing after a full stop. Some examples are listed below:

  • One word space ("French spacing"). This is the current convention in most countries that use the ISO basic Latin alphabet for published and final written work, as well as digital media.[51][52]
  • Two word spaces ("English spacing"). It is sometimes claimed that the two-space convention stems from the use of the monospaced font on typewriters, but in fact that convention replicates much earlier typography—the intent was to provide a clear break between sentences.[53] This spacing method was gradually replaced by the single space convention in published print, where space is at a premium, and continues in much digital media.[52][54]
  • One widened space (such as an em space). This spacing was seen in historical typesetting practices (until the early 20th century).[55] It has also been used in other typesetting systems such as the Linotype machine[56] and the TeX system.[57] Modern computer-based digital fonts can adjust the spacing after terminal punctuation as well, creating a space slightly wider than a standard word space.[58]

In other scripts

[edit]

Greek

[edit]
A New Testament manuscript with high dots as full stops

Although the present Greek full stop (τελεία, teleía) is romanized as a Latin full stop[59] and encoded identically with the full stop in Unicode,[6] 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.[6] The teleia should also be distinguished from the ano teleia, which is named "high stop" but looks like an interpunct, and principally functions as the Greek semicolon.

Armenian

[edit]

The Armenian script uses the ։ (վերջակետ, verdjaket). It looks similar to the colon (:).

Chinese and Japanese

[edit]

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 FOR VERTICAL IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP.

Korean

[edit]

Korean uses the Latin full stop along with its native script.

Ge'ez

[edit]
An ˈarat nettib written in an Amharic inscription that commemorated Yohannes IV's call to arms

In the Ge'ez script that is used to write Amharic and several other Ethiopian and Eritrean languages, the equivalent of the full stop following a sentence is the "ˈarat nettib" (U+1362 ። ETHIOPIC FULL STOP), which means four dots. The two dots on the right are slightly ascending from the two on the left, with space in between.

Brahmic scripts

[edit]

Nagari

[edit]

Indo-Aryan languages predominantly use Nagari-based scripts. In the Devanagari script that is used to write languages like Hindi, Maithili, Nepali, etc., a vertical line U+0964 । DEVANAGARI DANDA is used to mark the end of a sentence. It is known as poorna viraam (full stop). In Sanskrit, the additional symbol of two vertical lines U+0965 ॥ DEVANAGARI DOUBLE DANDA is used to mark the end of a poetic verse. However, some languages that are written in Devanagari use the Latin full stop, such as Marathi.

In the Eastern Nagari script used to write languages like Bangla and Assamese, the same vertical line ("।") is used for a full stop, known as Daa`ri in Bengali. Also, languages like Odia and Panjabi (which respectively use Oriya and Gurmukhi scripts) use the same symbol. Inspired from Indic scripts, the Santali language also uses a similar symbol in Ol Chiki script: U+1C7E ᱾ OL CHIKI PUNCTUATION MUCAAD to mark the end of a sentence. Similarly, it also uses U+1C7F ᱿ OL CHIKI PUNCTUATION DOUBLE MUCAAD to indicate a major break, like the end of a section, although rarely used.

Sinhalese

[edit]

In Sinhala, a symbol called kundaliya U+0DF4 ෴ SINHALA PUNCTUATION KUNDDALIYA was used before the colonial era. Latin full stops were later introduced into the Sinhalese script after the introduction of paper due to the influence of European languages.

Southeast Asian

[edit]

In Burmese script, the symbol U+104B ။ MYANMAR SIGN SECTION is used as a full stop. However, in Thai, no symbol corresponding to the full stop is used as terminal punctuation. A sentence is written without spaces and a space is typically used to mark the end of a clause or sentence.

Tibetic

[edit]

The Tibetan script uses two different full stops: tshig-grub (U+0F0D ། TIBETAN MARK SHAD) marks the end of a section of text, while the don-tshan (U+0F0E ༎ TIBETAN MARK NYIS SHAD) is used to mark the end of a whole topic. The descendants of Tibetic script also use similar symbols: For example, the Róng script of the Lepcha language uses ᰻‎ and ᰼‎ (U+1C3B ᰻ LEPCHA PUNCTUATION TA-ROL and U+1C3C ᰼ LEPCHA PUNCTUATION NYET THYOOM TA-ROL). However, due to the influence of the Burmese script, the Meitei script of the Manipuri language uses U+AAF0 ꫰ MEETEI MAYEK CHEIKHAN for a comma and U+ABEB ꯫ MEETEI MAYEK CHEIKHEI to mark the end of a sentence.

Shahmukhi

[edit]

For Indo-Aryan languages which are written in Nastaliq, like Kashmiri, Panjabi, Saraiki and Urdu, a symbol called k͟hatma (U+06D4 ۔ ARABIC FULL STOP) is used as a full stop at the end of sentences and in abbreviations. The symbol (۔) looks similar to a lowered dash (–).

Unicode

[edit]

Full stop Unicode code points:

  • U+002E . FULL STOP
  • U+0589 ։ ARMENIAN FULL STOP
  • U+06D4 ۔ ARABIC FULL STOP
  • U+0701 ܁ SYRIAC SUPRALINEAR FULL STOP
  • U+0702 ܂ SYRIAC SUBLINEAR FULL STOP
  • U+1362 ። ETHIOPIC FULL STOP
  • U+166E ᙮ CANADIAN SYLLABICS FULL STOP
  • U+1803 ᠃ MONGOLIAN FULL STOP
  • U+1809 ᠉ MONGOLIAN MANCHU FULL STOP
  • U+2CF9 ⳹ COPTIC OLD NUBIAN FULL STOP
  • U+2CFE ⳾ COPTIC FULL STOP
  • U+2E3C ⸼ STENOGRAPHIC FULL STOP
  • U+3002 。 IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP
  • U+A4FF ꓿ LISU PUNCTUATION FULL STOP
  • U+A60E ꘎ VAI FULL STOP
  • U+A6F3 ꛳ BAMUM FULL STOP
  • U+FE12 ︒ PRESENTATION FORM FOR VERTICAL IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP
  • U+FE52 ﹒ SMALL FULL STOP
  • U+FF0E ． FULLWIDTH FULL STOP[60]
  • U+FF61 ｡ HALFWIDTH IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP
  • U+16AF5 𖫵 BASSA VAH FULL STOP
  • U+16E98 𖺘 MEDEFAIDRIN FULL STOP
  • U+1BC9F 𛲟 DUPLOYAN PUNCTUATION CHINOOK FULL STOP
  • U+1DA88 𝪈 SIGNWRITING FULL STOP
  • U+E002E TAG FULL STOP

In text messages

[edit]

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: "Our sense was, is that because [text messages] were informal and had a chatty kind of feeling to them, that a period may have seemed stuffy, too formal, in that context," said head researcher Cecelia Klin.[61] The study did not find handwritten notes to be affected.[62]

A 2016 story by Jeff Guo in The Washington Post stated that the line break had become the default method of punctuation in texting, comparable to the use of line breaks in poetry, and that a period at the end of a sentence causes the tone of the message to be perceived as cold, angry or passive-aggressive.[63]

According to Gretchen McCulloch, an internet linguist, using a full stop to end messages is seen as "rude" by more and more people. She said this can be attributed to the way we text and use instant messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. She added that the default way to break up one's thoughts is to send each thought as an individual message.[64]

See also

[edit]
Look up full stop in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Notes

[edit]

References

[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Full stop

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
The full stop (.), also known as the period in , is a punctuation mark primarily used to indicate the end of a declarative sentence, signaling a complete thought and a full pause in reading. It also marks the conclusion of indirect questions and separates components in , such as "Dr." or "etc." In numerical contexts, the same symbol functions as the in English-speaking countries. The origins of the full stop date to the 3rd century BCE, when the scholar Aristophanes of Byzantium, a librarian at the , developed an early system for Greek texts to aid oral reading. He introduced three dots placed at varying heights: the highest dot (·), called the periodos or full point, denoted the end of a complete rhythmic unit or thought, distinct from shorter pauses marked by lower dots (resembling modern comma and colon). This innovation stemmed from ancient rhetorical practices emphasizing pauses for breath and emphasis in spoken performance. During the early medieval period, the full stop evolved further; in the 7th century, formalized the high dot as the distinctio finalis to clarify sentence endings and grammatical structure in Latin manuscripts. By the 8th century, under Charlemagne's directive, the scholar of (c. 740–804) advanced in Carolingian scriptoria, promoting consistent use of points to enhance text and reduce scribal errors. The mark simplified to its modern baseline form (.) by the , as revolutionized written language in the . The advent of the movable-type by around 1450 accelerated the full stop's adoption, embedding it in standardized texts like the . Venetian printer (d. 1515) further refined its placement and integration with other in his influential editions of classical works, establishing conventions that persist in modern . In English specifically, the term "full stop" became the preferred British term during the to denote its emphatic termination of a sentence, while "period" continued as the standard in . Today, the full stop remains essential for clarity in formal writing, though its interpretive role in digital messaging—sometimes implying curtness—reflects evolving communicative norms.

Names and terminology

Regional variations in English

In , the mark terminating a declarative sentence is predominantly termed a "full stop" in formal writing and speech, reflecting its role in marking a complete pause. This preference is endorsed by authoritative style guides such as New Hart's Rules: The Oxford Style Guide, which defines the "full point" interchangeably as a "full stop" and notes its distinction from the American "period." The term underscores the mark's function in fully concluding a thought, aligning with longstanding conventions in English varieties. In contrast, overwhelmingly favors "period" for the same punctuation, rendering "full stop" uncommon outside informal or cross-Atlantic contexts. The Chicago Manual of Style, a key reference for U.S. , consistently employs "period" throughout its guidelines on sentence endings and . This terminological dominance in American usage extends to educational materials and journalistic standards, where "period" is the standard without regional qualifiers. The divergence in nomenclature traces to historical usage where both terms were common in English, with "full stop" appearing by and "period" rooted in 16th-century references to rhetorical pauses. Over time, particularly in the , increasingly preferred "full stop" while solidified on "period." This evolution is evident in printing manuals and style guides, where British conventions like those of prioritized "full stop" for clarity in formal prose. Style guides exemplify these regional preferences: the guidelines, as in New Hart's Rules, advocate "full stop" for sentence endings in British academic and publishing contexts, whereas the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) specifies "period" for identical applications in American texts, including after abbreviations like "U.S." Such distinctions ensure consistency within each variant while facilitating cross-regional adaptation in global English.

Terms in other languages

In , the full stop is typically termed "point," a direct descendant of the Latin punctum, denoting a prick or dot used to mark textual pauses. In French, it is known as point, functioning equivalently to the English period or full stop at the end of declarative sentences. In Italian, the term is punto (or punto fermo for emphasis on finality), reflecting the same punctual origin. Spanish employs punto or punto final, with the latter underscoring its role in concluding texts or documents. This shared nomenclature across Romance tongues highlights the enduring influence of Latin scribal practices on European . Germanic languages adopt analogous "point"-based terminology, reinforcing the visual of a small mark. German refers to it as Punkt, placed after the final word of a sentence without spacing. In Dutch, the equivalent is punt, used similarly to denote sentence closure. These terms parallel the etymological roots in Proto-Germanic concepts of pointed notation, adapted from classical influences. Slavic languages favor words evoking "dot" or "point," emphasizing the mark's diminutive form. Russian uses tochka (точка), literally meaning "point" or "dot," to indicate the end of a statement. Polish calls it kropka, derived from a root implying a small drop or speck, applied at sentence termini. Such designations underscore a conceptual focus on the glyph's simplicity across East and West Slavic traditions. In Arabic, the full stop is designated nuqṭah (نقطة), translating to "point," and its application accommodates the script's right-to-left orientation, placing the mark at the end of the sentence, which appears on the left in typesetting. This Semitic variant illustrates how the punctuation's nomenclature adapts to directional writing systems while preserving the universal "point" motif.

History

Origins in ancient Greek and Latin

The full stop's origins trace back to writing practices, where the need for visual cues in —uninterrupted streams of letters—led to the development of pause indicators around the 3rd century BCE. In this era, a high dot (˙ or elevated ·), known as the teleia or punctus elevatus, was used to mark the end of a sentence or a complete thought unit called the periodos, facilitating pauses during oral of literary and dramatic texts. This mark appears in surviving Hellenistic papyri, such as fragments of plays and philosophical works, demonstrating its role in structuring rhythmic delivery rather than enforcing strict grammar. Aristophanes of Byzantium, a prominent scholar and librarian at (c. 257–185 BCE), is credited with formalizing this early system to aid readers and performers. His involved placing a single dot at varying heights relative to the text line: the high dot for the longest pause (full stop or periodos), the middle dot (·) for an intermediate pause (, or ), and the low dot (.) for the shortest pause (comma, or phrase). Designed primarily for theatrical and rhetorical purposes, this théseis system represented a shift from purely contextual interpretation to explicit notation, influencing how ancient texts were divided into sense units. Evidence of its application is found in papyri from the BCE, including excerpts from and other classical authors, where the high dot consistently signals sentence completion. Greek punctuation practices influenced later Latin scripts, though classical Romans largely relied on and abandoned systematic dots by the 2nd century CE, with figures like emphasizing rhythm over marks. In the 6th–7th centuries, Christian writers revived and adapted the Greek system for Latin. (c. 560–636) formalized it, defining the high dot (·) as the distinctio finalis for sentence ends and the low dot (.) for shorter pauses like commas, aiding grammatical clarity in manuscripts. The Greek middle dot (·) informed the Roman for word separation in archaic texts, while the colon (:), formed by stacking dots, emerged as a marker for stronger divisions, bridging pause hierarchies.

Evolution in medieval and modern English

In early manuscripts from the 6th to 15th centuries, evolved to support oral , with Christian scholars adapting ancient systems. By the , of Seville's distinctio finalis (high dot) clarified sentence endings. In the 8th century, of advanced standardization in Carolingian scriptoria under , promoting points for readability. Later, from the 12th to 15th centuries, the punctus—a simple dot at varying heights—marked pauses: baseline for short (comma-like), mid-line for medium, and headline for sentence ends, evolving into the modern full stop. The punctus elevatus, resembling an inverted , indicated major medial pauses between clauses, serving as a precursor to the , while the virgula suspensiva (forward slash) marked brief hesitations. These conventions, inherited from late antique practices, remained inconsistent and scribe-dependent, primarily aiding liturgical and scholarly reading. The advent of the in the brought greater standardization, particularly through the work of Venetian printer , who standardized placement, including the period at baseline, in his influential editions of classical works like the 1501 , using innovative italic typefaces for enhanced legibility. This distinguished the full stop from raised points for other pauses, promoting uniformity across printed Latin and texts as printing spread to via in the 1470s. Manutius's reforms bridged manuscript traditions and early modern , solidifying the dot's role as a sentence terminator. By the , English grammarians formalized these developments amid rising and prescriptive , with Lindley Murray's influential English Grammar (1795) explicitly codifying the full stop as the primary mark for concluding declarative sentences, emphasizing its distinction from commas and colons in a hierarchical pause system. Murray's text, which sold over 20 million copies by the mid-19th century, reflected Enlightenment efforts to regulate English prose for clarity and rhetorical effect. In the , British printing houses, influenced by mechanized typesetting and style guides from firms like , increasingly adopted "full stop" as the preferred terminology over "period," aligning with evolving conventions in and amid transatlantic divergences. This shift, evident in manuals from the early , underscored the mark's entrenched syntactic function while adapting to new media like telegraphs and typewriters.

Core textual usage

Ending declarative sentences

The full stop, also known as a period, serves as a terminal punctuation mark that signals the completion of a declarative or imperative sentence, thereby indicating a full thought or command has concluded. It distinguishes such sentences from interrogative or exclamatory ones, which use question marks or exclamation points instead, and enhances readability by providing a clear pause for the reader. For instance, in the sentence "The experiment succeeded.", the full stop marks the end of the declarative statement. Major style guides prescribe specific conventions for its placement, particularly regarding spacing. The American Psychological Association (APA) 7th edition and the Modern Language Association (MLA) handbook both require a single space following the full stop at the end of a sentence to maintain consistent formatting in academic writing. Similarly, British style guides, such as the UK Government Digital Service guidelines, recommend one space after a full stop, though in justified typesetting, additional spacing may be adjusted algorithmically without inserting extra manual spaces. Certain exceptions apply to its use in sentence endings. Indirect questions, which report rather than directly pose a query (e.g., "She asked whether the train was ."), conclude with a full stop instead of a to reflect their declarative . In bulleted or numbered , a full stop is typically omitted after items that are not complete sentences, such as phrases or fragments, to promote scannability; however, it is retained if each item forms a full declarative sentence. The historical rationale for the full stop traces back to systems of marking pauses for oral recitation. In the BCE, the scholar of developed a system of three dots—low, middle, and high—to denote pauses of increasing length, with the high dot (ancestral to the full stop) signaling the end of a complete thought unit, or periodos. This evolved through Latin adoption in the Roman era, where it marked rhetorical breaks, and into medieval Christian texts, where Isidore of Seville in the 7th century formalized it as a sentence terminator to aid comprehension. By the and the advent of printing in the , the full stop became standardized to support and enhance textual clarity, shifting from pause indicators to grammatical boundaries that improve modern readability.

In abbreviations and acronyms

In abbreviations and acronyms, the full stop serves to indicate truncation or separation of elements within shortened forms of words or phrases, distinct from its role in marking the end of complete sentences. Initialisms, which are abbreviations pronounced as individual letters (such as U.S.A. for United States of America), traditionally include full stops after each letter to signal the abbreviated nature of each component. In contrast, acronyms, pronounced as single words (such as NASA for National Aeronautics and Space Administration), typically omit full stops to facilitate fluid reading and reflect their word-like pronunciation. Formal abbreviations of titles or degrees, like for , often incorporate full stops to denote the omission of letters, following conventions in styles such as the (AP), which recommends periods in such cases. However, contractions, which shorten combined words (such as for do not), use apostrophes rather than full stops to indicate the elided letters, as they represent a phonetic merger rather than segmented . , for instance, advises omitting periods in all-caps abbreviations like PhD, treating them consistently with modern practices. Contemporary style guides show a trend toward omitting full stops in abbreviations and acronyms for brevity and visual clarity, particularly in all-caps forms. , updated through the 2020s, mandates periods only in two-letter initialisms like U.S. but omits them in longer acronyms like FBI to avoid clutter, reflecting broader shifts in digital and journalistic writing. Similarly, has evolved to eliminate periods in uppercase initialisms and acronyms, such as USA or DNA, prioritizing streamlined presentation over traditional . Historically, full stops in abbreviations originated in medieval manuscripts and early printing to denote textual omissions, where points or susperscript marks signaled truncated words in Latin and early English texts, aiding scribes in efficient copying of lengthy documents. This practice underscored the full stop's role in compact communication, influencing its persistent but diminishing use in abbreviations today.

Numerical and symbolic applications

As decimal and thousands separators

In English-speaking countries such as the and the , the full stop (period) serves as the decimal separator to distinguish the part from the of a number, as in 3.14 for three and one-seventh. This convention contrasts with many European countries, where the is instead used as the decimal separator, resulting in notations like 3,14. The full stop has also been employed as a thousands separator in certain numerical styles, particularly in older usage in some continental European countries, such as , where numbers like 1.000.000 denoted one million, though this practice is now rare and has largely been replaced by the or a . In contemporary , the typically functions as the thousands separator (e.g., 1,000,000), aligning more closely with American conventions. The (ISO) addresses these separators in its standard ISO 80000-1 (first published in 2009 and revised in 2022), which permits either the full stop or the as the decimal marker but requires consistent use within a document. For thousands grouping, the standard recommends a (e.g., ) as the preferred separator internationally, while allowing regional variations such as the period in some contexts to accommodate established practices. Historically, the use of points to denote fractions emerged in medieval Islamic mathematics, where scholars like al-Uqlīdisī in the employed decimal signs—often small circles or points—to separate integral and fractional parts in calculations, building on the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. This practice influenced later European developments, with the modern point appearing in the 1440s in the astronomical tables of Italian mathematician Giovanni Bianchini, predating previous estimates by about 150 years.

As multiplication sign and ordinal indicator

In mathematical notation, the full stop, or period, has served as an alternative to the raised dot (·, known as the interpunct or middot) for denoting multiplication, particularly in historical texts and certain printed or handwritten contexts where typefaces limited access to the centered dot. This usage emerged in the early 17th century, with English mathematician William Oughtred employing the dot in his 1631 work Clavis Mathematicae to indicate multiplication between numbers or variables, such as in expressions like "6.r" for 6 times r. German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz further promoted the dot as a multiplication symbol in a 1698 letter to Johann Bernoulli, favoring it over the × to avoid confusion with the variable x, as seen in notations like "Z C . L M" for Z × C times L × M. By the 18th century, the dot gained traction in European mathematical writing through figures like Leonhard Euler and James Stirling in Britain, though the full stop itself was often indistinguishable from the dot in low-position print, leading to occasional direct use of the period in algebraic expressions for multiplication, especially before standardization of the middot in modern typography. The full stop also functions as an ordinal indicator in several languages, particularly in Central and Northern Europe, where it follows a numeral to denote sequence or rank rather than cardinality. In German, for instance, ordinal numbers written in digits are followed by a period, as prescribed by the Duden orthographic rules, such as "1." for erste (first) or "15." in dates like "den 15. April" (the 15th of April). This convention extends to other languages like Hungarian, Danish, and several Slavic tongues (e.g., Czech and Polish), where the period signals ordinality without additional suffixes, contrasting with English's use of -st, -nd, -rd, or -th. In dates, this manifests regionally as formats like "1. Januar" in German-speaking areas, emphasizing the day's ordinal position before the month. Typographically, the period's role in multiplication evolved from 16th- and 17th-century mathematical manuscripts, where scribes and early printers adapted the full stop due to limited sets, predating the widespread adoption of the dedicated middot in the via influences like Christian Wolff's European texts. For ordinals, the period's use traces to medieval European conventions for abbreviating ranks in lists and calendars, solidifying in printed grammars by the , such as in German style guides that reserve the full stop to avoid ambiguity with decimal points (noted in the prior section on numerical separators). These applications highlight the full stop's versatility beyond sentence termination, adapting to symbolic needs in and ordering while varying by linguistic tradition.

Technical and coded contexts

In computing and logic

In computing, the full stop, or period (.), plays a crucial syntactic role as a delimiter and separator in various systems, beginning with its standardization in the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). Published in 1963 as ASA X3.4, ASCII assigned the decimal code 46 (hexadecimal 2E) to the period to ensure compatibility with existing telegraphic and typewriter conventions, facilitating its adoption in early digital text processing and data transmission. This encoding choice supported the period's use in programming and data formats, where it denotes boundaries without conflicting with alphanumeric characters. The period's function as a hierarchy separator emerged prominently in file naming conventions during the 1960s. In the PDP-6 Multiprogramming System, delivered by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1964, filenames incorporated a dot to separate the base name from an extension indicating file type, such as "program.exe" for executable files; this design was influenced by earlier time-sharing systems like CTSS (1961) and became a standard in UNIX by the early 1970s for denoting file types (e.g., "document.txt"). Similarly, in domain names under the Domain Name System (DNS) introduced in 1983, the period separates hierarchical labels, as in "example.com," where it delineates subdomains from top-level domains to structure internet addressing. In modern programming languages, the period serves as an operator for attribute access and resolution. In Python, dot notation accesses object attributes and methods, such as "obj.attr" to retrieve or invoke a , enabling object-oriented and in code. Java employs the period to separate package names in class declarations, like "com.example.package.ClassName," which maps to directory hierarchies and prevents naming conflicts in large-scale applications. In formal logic, the period features in early 20th-century notations for grouping and conjunction. introduced dot notation in 1889 in his Arithmetices principia to punctuate logical expressions, replacing parentheses for scope (e.g., higher dots enclosing lower ones to denote precedence), and by 1905, adapted it for conjunction, writing "p · q" to mean "p and q." This system influenced (1910–1913) by and Russell, where dots dual-serve as punctuation for formula delimitation and as symbols for logical product, though implication uses the dedicated horseshoe ⊃.

In telegraphy and phonetic systems

In Morse code, developed in the 1830s by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail, the full stop (period) is encoded as the sequence dit-dah-dit-dah-dit-dah, consisting of alternating short and long signals to denote the end of a declarative sentence or to punctuate abbreviations within messages. This distinct pattern differentiates it from other punctuation, such as the comma (dah-dit-dah-dit), ensuring clarity in transmission over telegraph lines where timing—three units between letters and seven between words—further separates elements without relying on the period for word breaks. During the early 20th century, the International Radiotelegraph Convention of 1906, held in , standardized the use of International Morse code for global , including the period's role in signaling the conclusion of sentences or entire telegrams to prevent ambiguity in cross-border communications. In practice, however, telegraph operators frequently substituted the word "STOP" for the period code in transmitted messages, as marks were often counted and charged as full words in billing, equivalent to four-letter terms that incurred no extra fee. This convention not only streamlined transmission but also contributed to cost savings, as telegrams were priced per word, prompting senders to abbreviate extensively and rely on contextual cues like "STOP" to imply sentence breaks without adding billed symbols. In phonetic systems, the full stop holds specific utility for clarity during verbal transmissions. The , standardized in the 1950s for military and use, designates the period as "stop" when spelling out punctuation in radiotelephony, distinguishing it from letter codes like "Papa" for P to avoid confusion in noisy environments. Similarly, in phonetic shorthand systems such as , introduced in 1837, the full stop is represented by a joined cross, kept small to avoid clashing with outlines, facilitating rapid while preserving grammatical structure through minimalistic pauses rather than full textual interruptions. These applications underscore the full stop's adaptation in coded and sound-based communication to balance efficiency with interpretability.

Typographic conventions

Spacing and placement rules

In English , modern professional follows the one-space rule after a full stop at the end of a sentence, particularly since the late with the adoption of proportional fonts. This distinguishes it from the two-space tradition—rooted in earlier printing practices but popularized with typewriters in the late —which persisted into the pre-1980s era due to the limitations of monospaced fonts. The two-space practice aimed to provide clearer sentence separation in uniform-width type, but it became obsolete with the shift to proportional fonts in modern printing. Standard English punctuation rules require no space before the full stop, positioning it directly adjacent to the preceding word without separation. In contrast, French typography conventions include spaces before certain compound punctuation marks, such as guillemets (« ») used for quotations, where a non-breaking space precedes the opening guillemet and follows the closing one to ensure proper visual balance. However, the full stop itself in French follows the same no-space-before rule as in English for simple sentences. In justified text alignment, hanging punctuation techniques position the full stop outside the text margins to preserve a straight, even edge along the right side of the paragraph, preventing the mark from disrupting the flush alignment. This microtypographic adjustment, also known as optical margin alignment, applies particularly to periods, commas, and in body text to enhance and aesthetic uniformity. The rise of digital typography in the 1990s, particularly with and CSS, introduced automatic and justification features that standardized single-spacing after full stops and diminished reliance on manual rules from print traditions. Modern CSS properties, such as hanging-punctuation introduced in the CSS Text Module Level 3 (first drafted in ), aim to automate the placement of periods in justified layouts. As of November 2025, support remains limited, with partial implementation in but lacking in major browsers like Chrome and .

Usage in quotations and dialogue

In , the full stop is placed inside the closing , regardless of whether it is part of the original quoted material, as per standard style guides such as those from the (MLA). For example, a sentence like "She said hello." treats the period as integral to the quoted phrase. In contrast, typically positions the full stop outside the quotation marks unless it belongs to the quoted content itself, following conventions outlined in guides like The Oxford Style Manual, resulting in forms such as "She said 'hello'." This difference reflects broader typographic traditions, with American usage prioritizing enclosure for visual consistency. In within novels and , the full stop appears before the closing when the spoken words form a complete declarative sentence, even if followed by a dialogue tag. For instance, the structure "Stop." he said. ensures the terminates the quoted speech appropriately, as recommended in editing resources aligned with principles. This placement maintains the integrity of the character's utterance while integrating it into the narrative flow, avoiding the use of a in such cases unless the tag directly continues the sentence. The , consisting of three dots, often integrates with the full stop in quotations to indicate omissions from the original text, particularly in formal editing. According to (17th edition), when an ellipsis follows a complete sentence within a quote, the full stop precedes the ellipsis to preserve the sentence's termination, as in "The report concluded that... measures were needed." Here, the ellipsis replaces additional content without substituting the full stop entirely, ensuring clarity in abbreviated excerpts. The evolution of in the , originating from marginal double commas (or "diple") used in European printing to highlight passages, influenced modern full stop placement within quotes. Printers like those in around 1580 adapted these double commas into inline marks, gradually standardizing the enclosure of terminal like the full stop inside them for readability in printed texts, as documented in historical typographic analyses. This shift from marginal annotations to embedded helped establish the logical and visual rules still debated in Anglo-American styles today.

Variations in other scripts

In Greek and Armenian

In modern Greek, the full stop is denoted by the low dot (.), called the teleía (τελεία), and it marks the end of a declarative sentence in the same manner as the English period. The raised dot (·), known as the ánō teleía (άνω τελεία), serves as a to separate independent clauses or indicate a stronger pause than a , while also appearing in lists or enumerations. This raised form retains echoes of the ancient Greek pístis or middle dot (·), which of introduced in the BCE to denote sentence boundaries in manuscripts. In polytonic Greek, used until the late for classical and texts, punctuation relied on a system of elevated dots and pauses derived from Byzantine traditions, where a high dot often functioned as a full stop or semicolon-like break, and semicolon-shaped marks indicated intermediate pauses. The shift to monotonic in , enacted by the Greek government to simplify diacritics and enhance , further standardized the low dot as the primary full stop, promoting alignment with international typographic norms and facilitating digital and compatibility. This reform, while primarily targeting accents, integrated into a unified modern system that largely mirrors Latin conventions. The Armenian script, created by around 405 CE, employs the verjaket (վերջակետ, ։)—a pair of vertically aligned dots resembling a colon—as its full stop, placed at the end of sentences to denote completion, much like the Latin period. This mark has been integral to Armenian writing since the alphabet's invention, appearing in classical manuscripts and persisting in both Eastern and Western Armenian variants today, with its form ensuring clear sentence demarcation in the script's unique letter shapes. In practice, the verjaket functions identically to Western full stops, though it may appear thicker in titles to match the script's bold strokes.

In East Asian scripts

In East Asian scripts, the full stop is typically represented by a small known as the ideographic full stop (。), which serves as the sentence terminator in Chinese and Japanese writing systems. In Japanese, this mark is called kuten (句点, "sentence point") or maru (丸, "circle"), and it was standardized as part of modern conventions in the mid-20th century following earlier influences from Western scripts. In Chinese, it is referred to as jùhào (句号, "sentence number"), a full-width small that occupies the space of one character, marking the end of declarative sentences. In Korean, the full stop aligns more closely with Western conventions using a half-width dot (.) for sentences in pure script, known as machimpyo (마침표, "ending mark"), to denote the conclusion of statements, including in mixed scripts with . In vertical writing, the ideographic full stop (。) is employed, while full-width variants like ． may appear in standardized encodings such as KS X 1001. Historically, classical East Asian texts lacked punctuation, relying on reader interpretation through annotations like jùdòu (句读) in Chinese to indicate pauses, until Western influences prompted adoption in the late 19th century. In Japan, this shift accelerated during the Meiji era starting in 1868, when translations of European works introduced comma and period marks, leading to widespread use by the early 20th century and official standardization in 1946. Similar reforms occurred in China around 1919 with the first printed book using modern punctuation, and in Korea through 20th-century orthographic updates. In vertical writing, common in traditional East Asian typography, the ideographic full stop (。) is positioned at the lower right of the preceding character, contrasting with the baseline placement in horizontal Latin scripts, to maintain visual balance in column-based layouts. This placement ensures the mark does not disrupt the right-to-left column flow while clearly signaling sentence endings. In , which are systems derived from the ancient and typically written horizontally but with vertical glyph stacking, the full stop equivalent often takes the form of a vertical mark to denote sentence boundaries without disrupting the syllabic flow. These punctuation forms emphasize verticality to align with the scripts' stacked consonant-vowel structures, contrasting with horizontal dots in Latin systems. In , used for languages like , , and Marathi, the primary sentence-ending mark is the single (।, U+0964 DEVANAGARI DANDA), a vertical bar resembling a staff or "stick" that signifies the end of a declarative sentence. The double danda (॥, U+0965 DEVANAGARI DOUBLE DANDA) serves for verse or section endings, a convention rooted in traditional dating to ancient Vedic texts where it delimited phrases and metrical units. This usage persists in classical and religious printing, though modern prose increasingly incorporates the Latin full stop (.) for . The , another Brahmic derivative used for the in , historically employed the kunddaliya (෴, U+0DF4 SINHALA PUNCTUATION KUNDDALIYA), a swirling, comma-like symbol at the baseline to mark the end of verses or sentences in palm-leaf manuscripts. During the 19th-century British colonial period, Western printing presses introduced , leading to the obsolescence of the kunddaliya in favor of the standard full stop (.), which now dominates modern Sinhala while retaining the traditional mark in ornamental or classical contexts. In Southeast Asian Brahmic scripts like Thai and Khmer, sentence endings use compact, baseline-placed marks adapted from Indic traditions but simplified for tonal abugidas. Thai traditionally separates sentences with a space (วรรค, wak), using the period (.) for major pauses or abbreviations in modern texts; the fongman (๏, U+0E4F THAI CHARACTER FONGMAN) marks paragraph beginnings or serves as a bullet, while the angkhan kuu (๚, U+0E5A THAI CHARACTER ANGKHANKUU) indicates ends of sections or chapters, with standardization efforts in the 1940s focusing on orthographic consistency. Khmer uses the khan (។, U+17D4 KHMER SIGN KHAN), a small vertical double dot at the baseline, functioning as a full stop for sentences or chapters, with a four-dot variant (៖, U+17D6) for stronger pauses, as outlined in traditional orthographic rules. These marks integrate seamlessly with the scripts' stacked diacritics, avoiding intrusion into vowel positioning. Tibetan script, a Brahmic offshoot with pronounced vertical stacking in its form, utilizes the tsheg (་, U+0F0B TIBETAN MARK INTERSYLLABIC TSHEG), a small dot or wedge at the midline, primarily for separating syllables or words within sentences, while the shad (།, U+0F0D TIBETAN MARK SHAD) acts as the sentence-ending full stop, akin to a vertical or period. The tsheg ensures clarity in dense, vowelless consonant clusters, and double shads (།།) denote section breaks, a system refined since the 7th-century script invention for . Modern digital representation of these vertical forms faces unification challenges in , as variations in shape and baseline alignment across —such as the thicker versus the slender Tibetan shad—necessitated separate code points to preserve linguistic distinctions, avoiding the pitfalls of normalization that could merge culturally specific marks. This approach, debated in early proposals, supports accurate rendering in vertical text flows but requires advanced font support for proper stacking and .

Digital representation

Unicode encoding

The full stop is encoded in Unicode as U+002E FULL STOP (.), a character in the Basic Latin block that serves as the primary punctuation mark for sentence termination in Latin-script languages and as a decimal separator in many locales. This encoding is fully compatible with ASCII, where it occupies position 46 (0x2E in hexadecimal), ensuring seamless integration in legacy systems. Introduced in Unicode version 1.1 in 1993, U+002E inherits its definition from earlier standards and is rendered as a small dot at the baseline, with its use as a decimal point being locale-dependent. Several variant encodings exist for the full stop to accommodate specific typographic or linguistic needs. The middle dot, U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT (·), functions as an in Greek (known as ano teleia) for sentence separation, as a in , and as a Georgian comma; it is distinct from U+002E by its raised position. In East Asian , the fullwidth full stop, U+FF0E FULLWIDTH FULL STOP (．), provides a wider form suitable for proportional fonts in scripts like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, maintaining visual balance in vertical or horizontal layouts. The encoding history of the full stop traces back to early international standards for digital text representation. It first appeared in the as part of seven-bit character sets, including the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) finalized in and the international ISO/IEC 646 standard ratified in 1972, which defined a 128-character repertoire for data interchange. By the , with the development of and its encoding scheme—proposed in 1992 and standardized in 1993—the full stop retained its ASCII position (byte 0x2E in ), preserving for global adoption across diverse scripts and applications. In bidirectional text environments, the full stop (U+002E) is classified as a neutral character with Common bidirectional category (CS for common separator in some contexts), meaning its visual placement follows the surrounding text direction rather than initiating a new embedding level. This can lead to rendering challenges in right-to-left scripts like Arabic and Hebrew, where the period appears at the logical end of a sentence but visually on the left side, requiring proper algorithm implementation per Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (UBA) to avoid misalignment with left-to-right insertions such as numbers or Latin terms.

In text messaging and informal digital communication

In informal digital communication, such as , the full stop (period) is frequently omitted at the end of , reflecting a conversational style that prioritizes brevity and flow over traditional grammatical conventions. A linguistic of American students' text messages found that only 39% of included sentence-final punctuation, with periods appearing in just 30% of cases, compared to higher rates in (41%). This omission mimics the prosody of spoken dialogue, where pauses are implied by message transmission rather than explicit marks, allowing for a more casual, ongoing exchange. When full stops are used in text messages, they often carry pragmatic implications beyond mere sentence closure, influencing perceptions of tone and intent. Experimental research has shown that messages ending with a full stop, such as "yup.", are rated as less sincere than unpunctuated equivalents like "yup", an effect unique to digital formats and absent in handwritten notes. In short messages (one word), full stops can amplify negativity or abruptness, leading recipients to infer irritation or finality, though this perceptual shift diminishes in longer messages (three or more words). However, interpretations vary by context; full stops may signal earnestness, formality, or seriousness in emotionally charged exchanges, rather than consistent hostility, highlighting their semiotic flexibility in informal settings. This evolving role extends to broader digital platforms like comments and chats, where full stops can underscore emphasis or mimic spoken pauses for dramatic effect, such as in "Read. This. Slowly." Such uses adapt the to compensate for the absence of nonverbal cues, though overuse in abrupt replies may still evoke unintended emotional undertones.

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