Other allusions are to be found in Gay’s Shepherd’s Week—Saturday (1714) and Swift’s Dialogue between Mad Mullinix and Timothy (1728). The older Punchinello was far less restricted in his actions and circumstances than his modern successor. He fought with allegorical figures representing want and weariness as well as with his wife and with the police, was on intimate terms with the patriarchs and the seven champions of Christendom, sat on the lap of the queen of Sheba, had kings and dukes for his companions, and cheated the Inquisition as well as the common hangman. Powell seems to have introduced a trained pig which danced a minuet with Punch, and the French (among whom Punch is now usually styled Guignol, originally a puppet hailing from Lyons) having occasionally employed a cat in the place of the dog Toby, whose origin is somewhat uncertain. A typical version of the modern play, with illustrations, was published by Payne Collier and Cruikshank in 1828 (3rd ed., 1844). (R. M. W.)
PUNCH. (1) To pierce, perforate, make a hole or stamp a mark, &c., with a tool known as a “puncheon” or “punch.” The verb is derived from the substantive; the original is Lat. punctio, a pricking, from pungere, to prick. This gave Ital. punzone, O. Fr. poinson, mod. poinçon. Both these French forms mean also a cask, from which the English “puncheon,” a liquid measure varying in capacity from 72 to 120 gallons is taken. This is probably the same word as that for the tool, and refers to a mark or sign stamped or “punched” on the Cask. The origin may therefore be paralleled by the explanation of “hogshead” as referring to a mark of an “oxhead” branded on the measure. (2) To beat or hit, especially in such colloquialisms, as “to punch one’s head.” This is not the same word as (1) but is a shortened form of “punish,” from Lat. punire, of which the ultimate origin is poena, penalty, from which is derived “pain.” (3) The name of a drink, composed of spirits, water, sliced lemons or limes, or lemon-juice, together with sugar and spice, and served hot. According to the spirit with which it is made, it is known as brandy, whisky, rum punch, &c. Milk-punch is made of milk and spirit, bottled and served cold. The word is the English representative of the Hindostani panch, five (from the number of ingredients), and was introduced from the East.
PUNCTUATION (Lat. punctum, a point), the theory or art of “pointing” a literary composition so as to divide it properly into sentences and portions of sentences, which the “points” are used to mark at their close, with a view to precision in the meaning of a continuous set of written words, by the indication of what would be pauses or changes of expression if they were spoken. The uses of the chief “points” are explained as follows in the “Rules for Compositors” at the Oxford University Press, compiled by Mr Horace Hart, the university printer:—
The “full stop” or “period” (.) marks the end of sentence. The “colon” (:)—Greek κῶλον, a limb—is at the transition point of the sentence. The “semicolon” (;) separates different statements. The “comma” (,)—Gr. κόμμα, from κόπτειν, i.e. a piece cut off—separates clauses, phrases and particles. (The terms “period”—Greek περίοδος—“colon,” “comma,” now identified in punctuation with the signs here given, were borrowed from the Greek grammarians, who originally described either the whole sentence or a longer or shorter part of it respectively in this way.) Among other signs, the “dash” (—) marks abruptness or irregularity. The “exclamation” (!) marks surprise. The “interrogation” or “query” (?) asks a question. The apostrophe (’) marks elisions or the possessive case. “Quotes,” quotation-marks or “inverted commas”(“ ”) define quoted words. Irregularities or interpolations in a sentence are marked by various forms of bracket ( ) or parenthesis. Literary usage and the practice of printing-houses vary, however, so much that it is impossible to define exactly and shortly the part played by some of these points in a reasonable system of punctuation. The Oxford Rules already mentioned, which deal also with spelling and other pitfalls in literary composition and printing, carry the authority of such experts as Dr J. A. H. Murray and Dr Henry Bradley; and the art of punctuation may be studied also in such works as H. Beadnell’s Spelling and Punctuation, P. Allardyce’s Stops: or how to punctuate, T. L. de Vinne’s Correct Composition, and T. Lefevre’s Guide pratique du compositeur. The acceptance of a conventional system of modern punctuation is mainly due to the invention of printing, and to the ingenuity and care of individual typographers. In the earlier forms of writing the letters ran on continuously in lines; it was only by degrees that actual words were divided from one another by spacing within the line; then later came the distribution of words into sentences by means of points, and the introduction by Aldus Manutius in the 16th century of a regular system for these. The chief signs were inherited by the printers from the dots of the Greek grammarians, but often with altered meanings; thus the Greek interrogation mark (;) becomes the modern semicolon. (See Palaeography and Typography.)
PUNDIT (Hindī pandit; Skr. pandita), a learned man, a teacher, particularly one skilled in Sanskrit and Hindu law, religion and philosophy. Before the institution of the High Courts in 1862, the Supreme Court of India had a law officer styled the Pundit of the Supreme Court, who advised the English judges in points of Hindu law. The term is frequently applied, somewhat derisively, or humorously, to learned persons, to those who claim by long official or other experience to lay down the law or dictate principles of conduct.
PUNIC WARS, a name specially appropriated to the wars between Rome and Carthage in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. The origin of these conflicts is to be sought in the position which Rome acquired about 275 B.C. as suzerain and protector of all Italy. Her new obligation to safeguard the peninsula against foreign interference made it necessary that she should not allow the neighbouring island of Sicily to fall into the hands of a strong and expansive power. Carthage, on the other hand, had long been anxious to conquer Sicily and so to complete the chain of island posts by which she controlled the western Mediterranean.
First Punic War (264–241 B.C.[1]).—The proximate cause of the first outbreak was a crisis in the city of Messana, commanding the straits between Italy and Sicily. A band of Campanian mercenaries, which had forcibly established itself within the town and was being hard pressed in 264 by Hiero II. of Syracuse, applied for help both to Rome and Carthage and thus brought a force from either power upon the scene. The Carthaginians, arriving first, occupied Messana and effected a reconciliation with Hiero. The Roman commander nevertheless persisted in throwing troops into the city, and by seizing the person of the Carthaginian admiral during a parley induced him to withdraw his garrison. The Romans thus won an important strategic post, but their aggression was met by a declaration of war from Carthage and Syracuse.
Operations began with a joint attack upon Messana, which the Romans easily repelled. In 263 they advanced with at considerable force into Hiero’s territory and induced him to seek peace and alliance with them. Having thus secured their foothold on the island they set themselves to wrest it completely from Carthage. In 262 they besieged and captured the enemy’s base at Agrigentum, and proved that Punic mercenary troops could not stand before the infantry of the legions. But they made little impression upon the Carthaginian fortresses in the west of the island and upon the towns of the interior which mostly sided against them. Thus in the following campaigns their army was practically brought to a standstill.
In 260 the war entered upon a new phase. Convinced that they could gain no serious advantage so long as the Carthaginians controlled the sea and communicated freely with their island possessions, the Romans built their first large fleet of standard battleships. At Mylae, off the north Sicilian coast, their admiral C. Duilius defeated a Carthaginian squadron of superior manœuvring capacity by a novel application of grappling and
- ↑ The chronology here given is the traditional one, but recent researches tend to show that many events have been antedated by one year.
