#fleiscín

Now, that’s a loaded question. In a previous post, Are Fadas Important?, we compared a list of words with and without fada, just to provide an idea of just how crucial punctuation (in the broadest use of this term of course) is. 

I have previously written about the fleiscín:

An Fleiscín (Function and where to use)

Etymology list: Punctuation Marks

Now, on to our main course:

Gan fleiscín

Le fleiscín

An teallach An tál An teas An teach An tart An torc

The hearth, Fireplace The adze (cutting tool) The heat The house The thirst The boar

An t-eallach An t-ál An t-eas An t-each An t-art An t-orc

Camóg, or the comma is literally “little bent thing”. We have previously discussed all the other terms that “little crooked thing” refers to. 

Comhartha derives from the Old Irish comartha, meaning sign, indication or mark. It appears in comhartha ceiste (question mark) and comhartha uaillbhreasa (exclamation mark).

Fleiscín, or the hyphen derives from the word fleasc, which refers to a line, stroke or dash, especially in Ogham. 

Fleasc also refers to a rod or a wand; a hoop or circlet; and a strip or splinter. Tá fleasc air would translate as “he has a screw loose”, but literally “he has a splinter on him”. 

Post: How Important is the Fleiscín?

Corrfhleasc is a wee wobbly “~”, and corr here means “rounded” or “humpy”.

Lánstad is a full stop. It's pretty literal—full-stop.

Leathstad is a semicolon; it can be translated literally to "half-stop".

Lúibín refers to a bracket, and derives from lúb, meaning “loop”, plus the diminutive -ín to give “little loop”. Lúibín also refers to a small loop; link; button-hole; ringlet (and by association ringleted girl or pretty girl); knitting or stitching; a little nook or a turn in a song. 

Ponc refers to a full stop, but not only does it simply mean “point”, it also refers to something specific or particular. The phrase i bponc an bháis means “the point of death”. You can also put someone in a spot: duine a chuir i bponc. 

The ponc séimhithe simply translates to “a dot of (marking) séimhiú”. It denotes the dot above the consonants ḃ, ċ, ḋ, ḟ, ġ, ṁ, ṗ, ṡ and ṫ (in modern Irish denoted by bh, ch, dh, fh, gh, mh, sh and th).

Poncaíocht refers to punctuation as a whole, and derives from ponc (dot) → poncaigh (to punctuate) → poncaíocht (punctuation). See Post: Suffixes for makeup