# 278 - An Admirable Point - Florence Hazrat

An episode of [You Are Not So Smart](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/521594713), 7 Jan 2024, 1 h 00 min.

Audio: https://stitcher.simplecastaudio.com/aa9f2648-25e9-472a-af42-4e5017da38cf/episodes/59b0371c-856a-4a18-b9ac-4f1a47ba5a45/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=aa9f2648-25e9-472a-af42-4e5017da38cf&awEpisodeId=59b0371c-856a-4a18-b9ac-4f1a47ba5a45&feed=N5eKDxJI

On this episode we learn about the history of the exclamation point, the question mark, and the semicolon (among many other aspects of language) with Florence Hazrat, a scholar of punctuation, who, to my great surprise, informed me that while a lot of language is the result of a slow evolution, a gradual ever-changing process, punctuation in the English language is often an exception to this – for instance, a single person invented the semicolon; they woke up and the semicolon didn’t exist, and then went to bed that night, and it did! Florence Hazrat's Website An Admirable Point How Minds Change David McRaney’s Twitter YANSS Twitter Show Notes Newsletter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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