How will the word end? Not with a shout--(or a whisper) but with a period. Except in headlines

In the current Discover magazine I find a two-page ad on punctuation. It is written by Russell Baker, the New York Times columnist, and is called, simply, “How to Punctuate.”

It is written in Baker’s plain but urbane style, and is illustrated by photographs of Baker posing in front of his bookshelves, holding up a toolbox full of large cut-out punctuation marks and making faces to illustrate the question mark, the parentheses and the exclamation point.

Baker’s elementary rules may seem condescending, but there is no reason for the rules of punctuation to be difficult. If a person wanted some rules for punctuating a letter, a contract, or a will, I’m sure Baker’s essay would suffice.

Of the dash and the parenthesis, for example, he writes: “Warning! Use sparingly. The dash SHOUTS. Parentheses whisper. Shout too often, people stop listening; whisper too much, people become suspicious of you. . . . “

Notice that Baker has used this little paragraph to illustrate the use of the exclamation point, the semicolon, the comma and the period--each of which he explains elsewhere.

What interests me about his ad, beyond its obvious usefulness, is its sponsor. What corporation would spend good advertising money in such an educational cause?

Not surprisingly, the sponsor is the International Paper Co., which appends its own message at the bottom of Baker’s guide: “Today, the printed word is more vital than ever. Now there is more need than ever for all of us to read better, write better and communicate better. International Paper offers this series in the hope that, even in a small way, we can help.” (For free reprints, write International Paper Co., Dept. DM, P.O. Box 954, Madison Square Station, New York, N.Y. 10010.)

The paper company’s message ends: “We believe in the power of the printed word.”

I’m not sure what International Paper’s interest is in a public that punctuates better. Perhaps, in the age of the computer, they fear that people are moving away from handwriting and paper to the computer, with its electronic letters; perhaps they are trying to encourage us to cherish our writing skill and to keep paper handy for when inspiration strikes.

On the other hand, considering the computer’s ability to print out its files at incredible speed, computers must be using a thousand times more paper than handwritten communication ever did. One thinks nothing these days of printing out a dozen copies of a letter for various destinations.

I should think the paper business would be in better shape than ever, even though fewer people are using old-fashioned letterheads, or personal stationery.

But I wouldn’t care to be in the retail ink business. How long has it been since you’ve bought a bottle of ink? Ink was outmoded by the ballpoint pen long before the computer came into widespread use.

I remember when everyone owned a good fountain pen. It was a Carter, a Parker, or a Sheaffer; it cost several dollars, and it was treasured like a watch.

If you owned a fountain pen you had to feed it ink, which you bought by the bottle. It came in various colors--red, green, purple, blue, black--and it was always being knocked over and spilled. An overturned bottle of ink could destroy a day’s laborious work.

If you couldn’t afford a fountain pen, you had a pen with a wooden handle and a steel point, which you dipped in the ink bottle. Steel pens were not a great improvement over the quill pens of the 18th Century, and they tended to stick and shoot gobs of ink over your paper.

In a quiet way the ballpoint pen was a revolution. Even at the outset they were rather inexpensive; but soon they became as cheap as beans. Small businesses began giving them away as advertisements, and soon everyone’s desk drawers were filled with ballpoints advertising Joe’s Camera Shop, Fidelity Trust, Hal’s Pet Shop, Mario’s Chili.

I don’t know whether the easy availability of ballpoint pens made us more literate or not. I doubt it, the illiteracy rate being what it is today. But at least it gave us something cheap to sign our names or our X’s with.

Does anyone use a pencil anymore?

Until only a few years ago newspaper copy editors used soft lead pencils to correct the copy they prepared for the press. Today there is no such thing as copy--no sheets of paper pasted together and blackened with copy editors’ marks. There is nothing anymore but electronic files in computers. The story is written by a reporter on a computer and the copy editor keyboards his corrections into his own terminal.

When I was a copy editor, like most copy editors I tended to drop short pencils into my pockets, and unconsciously got home with them, so that in time I had hundreds of pencil stubs in my desk at home. That is a form of worthless compensation that copy editors no longer enjoy.

Until recently I supposed that architects still used pens and pencils for their drawings, but now I hear that they can draw all those inglenooks, festoons and guilloches on computers.

Maybe the computer will make us more literate than ever. It relieves us of the necessity of writing by hand; keyboarding, once learned, is an easier skill than writing.

But we still must know our punctuation: when to use a comma, and when to use a semicolon; when a question mark and when (softly now) parentheses. Go easy on the dash--and beware the exclamation point!

And don’t forget to stop. Period.