and _irony_ is disguised satire.

There are many other figures of speech which give piquancy to language
and play upon words in such a way as to convey a meaning different from
their ordinary signification in common every-day speech and writing. The
golden rule for all is to _keep them in harmony with the character and
purpose of speech and composition_.




CHAPTER V

PUNCTUATION

Principal Points--Illustrations--Capital Letters.


Lindley Murray and Goold Brown laid down cast-iron rules for punctuation,
but most of them have been broken long since and thrown into the junk-heap
of disuse. They were too rigid, too strict, went so much into _minutiae_,
that they were more or less impractical to apply to ordinary composition.
The manner of language, of style and of expression has considerably
changed since then, the old abstruse complex sentence with its hidden
meanings has been relegated to the shade, there is little of prolixity or
long-drawn-out phrases, ambiguity of expression is avoided and the aim is
toward terseness, brevity and clearness. Therefore, punctuation has been
greatly simplified, to such an extent indeed, that it is now as much a
matter of good taste and judgment as adherence to any fixed set of rules.
Nevertheless there are laws governing it which cannot be abrogated, their