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Interpunct
Punctuation apostrophe ( ’ ' ) brackets ( [ ], ( ), { }, ⟨ ⟩ ) colon ( : ) comma ( , ، 、 ) dash ( ‒, –, —, ― ) ellipsis ( …, ..., . . . ) exclamation mark ( ! ) full stop/period ( . ) guillemets ( « » ) hyphen ( ‐ ) hyphen-minus ( - ) question mark ( ? ) quotation marks ( ‘ ’, “ ”, ' ', " " ) semicolon ( ; ) slash‌/stroke‌/solidus ( /,  ⁄  ) Word dividers space ( ) ( ) ( ) interpunct ( · ) General typography ampersand ( & ) at sign ( @ ) asterisk ( * ) backslash ( \ ) bullet ( • ) caret ( ^ ) dagger ( †, ‡ ) degree ( ° ) ditto mark ( 〃 ) inverted exclamation mark ( ¡ ) inverted question mark ( ¿ ) number sign‌/pound‌/hash ( # ) numero sign ( № ) obelus ( ÷ ) ordinal indicator ( º, ª ) percent, per mil ( %, ‰, ‱ ) pilcrow ( ¶ ) prime ( ′, ″, ‴ ) section sign ( § ) tilde ( ~ ) underscore‌/understrike ( _ ) vertical bar‌/broken bar‌/pipe ( ¦, | ) Intellectual property copyright symbol ( © ) registered trademark ( ® ) service mark ( ℠ ) sound recording copyright ( ℗ ) trademark ( ™ ) Currency currency (generic) ( ¤ ) currency (specific) ( ₳ ฿ ₵ ¢ ₡ ₢ ₠ $ ₫ ৳ ₯ € ƒ ₣ ₲ ₴ ₭ ℳ ₥ ₦ ₧ ₱ ₰ £ ₹ ₨ ₪ ₸ ₮ ₩ ¥ ៛ ) Uncommon typography asterism ( ⁂ ) tee ( ⊤ ) up tack ( ⊥ ) index/fist ( ☞ ) therefore sign ( ∴ ) because sign ( ∵ ) interrobang ( ‽ ) irony punctuation ( ؟ ) lozenge ( ◊ ) reference mark ( ※ ) tie ( ⁀ ) Related diacritical marks whitespace characters non-English quotation style ( « », „ ” ) In other scripts Chinese punctuation
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An interpunct ( · ), also called an interpoint,^[1] is a punctuation mark consisting of a dot used for interword separation in ancient Latin script and in some modern languages as a stand-alone sign inside a word. It is present in Unicode as code point U+00B7 · middle dot (HTML: · ·).

The dot is vertically centered, e.g. "DONA·EIS·REQVIEM", and is therefore also called a middle dot or centered dot (Commonwealth: centred dot). In addition to the round dot form, inscriptions sometimes use a small equilateral triangle for the interpunct, pointing either up or down. Such triangles can be found on inscriptions on buildings in the twentieth century. Ancient Greek, by contrast, had not developed interpuncts; all the letters ran together. The use of spaces for word separation did not appear until much later, some time between 600 and 800 AD.

The dot operator (also called middle dot and visually similar or identical to the interpunct) is a multiplication sign (instead of the × used in English-speaking countries): “a multiplied by b” is written either explicitly as a·b or implicitly as ab, depending on context. It also discriminates the scalar product (a·b) from the vector cross product (a×b or a∧b) in vector multiplication.

In written language[link]

Various dictionaries often use the interpunct (in this context, sometimes called hyphenation point) to indicate syllabification within a word with multiple syllables.^[2]

English[link]

British English[link]

In British typography, an interpunct is sometimes called a space dot. Traditionally it has been primarily used as a decimal point, e.g. 3·14 as opposed to the SI 3,14 or American 3.14 (also SI), but this usage is less common in typography than in handwritten text, as a full stop (period) is easier to type.

In British publications up to the mid-1970s, especially scientific and mathematical texts, the decimal point was commonly typeset as a middle dot. When the British currency was decimalised in 1971, the official advice issued was to write decimal amounts with a raised point (thus: £21·48) and to use a decimal point "on the line" only when typesetting constraints made it unavoidable. The widespread introduction of electronic typewriters and calculators (many of which were manufactured and imported from places like Japan and the United States) soon afterwards was probably a major factor contributing to the decline of the raised decimal point, although it can still sometimes be encountered in academic circles (e.g., Cambridge University History Faculty Style Guide 2010^[3]) and its use is still enforced by some UK-based academic journals such as The Lancet.^[4]

Shavian[link]

In the Shavian alphabet of English, the middle dot is used before a word to denote it as a proper noun.

Catalan[link]

The combination of two ⟨l⟩ and a raised dot is a typical feature of Catalan texts.

In Catalan, the punt volat (literally, "flown dot") is used between two ⟨l⟩ (thus: ⟨l·l⟩) in cases where each belongs to a separate syllable (e.g. cel·la, 'cell'). This is to distinguish the true "double-l" pronunciation [ɫː] from that of the letter-combination ⟨ll⟩ (without a dot) which in Catalan stands for [ʎ] (e.g. cella, 'eyebrow').

In orthographic descriptions, ⟨l·l⟩ is called ela geminada ("geminate l") and ⟨ll⟩ doble ela. A period or a hyphen is frequently used when a middle dot is unavailable: col.lecció or col-lecció. This is nonetheless considered a misspelling. Unicode has unique code points for the letters ⟨Ŀ⟩ (U+013F) and ⟨ŀ⟩ (U+0140), but they are compatibility characters and are not frequently used nor recommended.^[5] The preferred Unicode representation is ⟨l·⟩ (U+006C + U+00B7). The use of the ⟨•⟩ bullet (U+2022, •) is strongly discouraged on aesthetic grounds.

In Medieval Catalan the symbol ⟨·⟩ was sometimes used to note certain elisions, much like the modern apostrophe (see Occitan below).

There is no separate keyboard layout for Catalan; punt volat can be typed using Shift-3 in the Spanish (Spain) layout.

Chinese[link]

The Chinese language sometimes uses the interpunct (called the partition sign) to separate the given name and the family name of non-Chinese, or unsinicized or desinicized minority ethnic groups in China, for example, 威廉·莎士比亚 (Wēilián·Shāshìbǐyǎ)^[6] is the transliteration of "William Shakespeare", and the partition sign is inserted in between the characters signifying the sound of "William" and those for "Shakespeare". In Taiwan the Unicode code point U+2027,Hyphenation Point, is recommended by government as a fullwidth puntuation to separate the given name and the family name of non-Chinese^[7]. Therefore 威廉‧莎士比亚 is the transliteration of "William Shakespeare". The Chinese partition sign is also used to separate book title and chapter title when they are mentioned consecutively (with book title first, then chapter).

In Chinese, the middle dot is also fullwidth in printed matter, but the regular middle dot (·) is used in computer input, which is then rendered as fullwidth in Chinese-language fonts. Note that while some fonts may render the Japanese katakana middle dot as a square under great magnification, this is not a defining property of the middle dot that is used in China or Japan.

Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren used a middle dot to represent the glottal stop in his reconstruction of medieval Chinese.

See also proper name mark.

Taiwanese Minnan[link]

In Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Taiwanese Hokkien, middle dot is often used as a workaround for dot above right diacritic because most early encoding systems did not support this diacritic. This is now encoded as U+0358 ͘ combining dot above right (see o͘). Unicode did not support this diacritic until June 2004. Newer fonts often support it natively; however, the practice of using middle dot still exists. Historically, it was derived in the late 19th century from an older barred-o with curly tail as an adaptation to the typewriter.

Franco-Provençal[link]

In Franco-Provençal (or Arpitan), the interpunct is used in order to distinguish the following graphemes:

• ch·, pronounced [ʃ], versus ch, pronounced [ts]
• j·, pronounced [ʒ], versus j, pronounced [dz]
• g· before e, i, pronounced [ʒ], versus g before e, i, pronounced [dz]

Greek[link]

The Greek ánō stigmē or ánō teleía (άνω στιγμή/άνω τελεία, lit. "upper dot") is a punctuation mark equivalent to the semicolon and is often incorrectly expressed as a middle dot; Unicode provides a unique code point: U+0387 · greek ano teleia.^[8][9]

Japanese[link]

Interpuncts are often used to separate transcribed foreign words written in katakana. For example, "Can't Buy Me Love" becomes 「キャント・バイ・ミー・ラヴ」 (Kyanto·bai·mī·ravu). A middle dot is also sometimes used to separate lists in Japanese instead of the Japanese comma ("、" known as tōten). Dictionaries and grammar lessons in Japanese sometimes also use a similar symbol to separate a verb suffix from its root.

However, the Japanese writing system usually does not use space or punctuations to separate words (however, the mixing of katakana, kanji, and hiragana gives some indication of word boundary).

In Japanese typography, there exist two Unicode code points:

• U+30FB ・ katakana middle dot, with a fixed width that is the same as most kana characters, known as fullwidth.
• U+FF65 ･ halfwidth katakana middle dot

The interpunct also has a number of other uses in Japanese, including the following: to separate titles, names and positions: 課長補佐・鈴木 (Assistant Section Head Suzuki); as a decimal point when writing numbers in kanji: 三・一四一五九二 (3.141 592); and in place of hyphens, dashes and colons when writing vertically.

Korean[link]

Interpuncts are used in written Korean to denote a list of two or more words, more or less in the same way a slash (/) is used to juxtapose words in many other languages. In this role it also functions in a similar way to the English en dash, as in 미·소관계, "American–Soviet relations". The use of interpuncts has declined in years of digital typography and especially in place of slashes, but in the strictest sense, a slash cannot replace a middle dot in Korean typography.

Latin[link]

The dot called interpunct was regularly used in Classical Latin to separate words. It often took the shape of a triagle, point down, and sometimes of a mid-line comma. It fell out of use ca. 200 CE, and Latin was written scripta continua for several centuries.

Occitan[link]

In Occitan, especially in the Gascon dialect, the interpunct (punt interior, literally, "inner dot", or ponch naut for "high/upper point") is used to distinguish the following graphemes:

• s·h, pronounced [s.h], versus sh, pronounced [ʃ], for example, in des·har 'to undo' vs. deishar 'to leave'
• n·h, pronounced [n.h], versus nh, pronounced [ɲ], for example in in·hèrn 'hell' vs. vinha 'vineyard'

Although it is considered to be a spelling error, a period is frequently used when a middle dot is unavailable: des.har, in.hèrn, which is the case for French keyboard layout.

In Old Occitan, the symbol · was sometimes used to denote certain elisions, much like the modern apostrophe, the only difference being that the word that gets to be elided is always placed after the interpunct, the word before ending either in a vowel sound or the letter n:

• que·l (que lo, that the) versus qu'el (that he)
• From Bertran de Born's Ab joi mou lo vers e·l comens (translated by James H. Donalson):

Old Irish[link]

In many linguistic works discussing Old Irish (but not in actual Old Irish manuscripts), the interpunct is used to separate a pretonic preverbal element from the stressed syllable of the verb, e.g. do·beir "says". It is also used in citing the verb forms used after such preverbal elements, e.g. ·beir "carries", to distinguish them from forms used without preverbs, e.g. beirid "carries".^[10] In other works, the hyphen (do-beir, -beir) or colon (do:beir, :beir) may be used for this purpose.

Runes[link]

Runic texts use either an interpunct-like or a colon-like punctuation mark to separate words. There are two Unicode characters dedicated for this: U+16EB ᛫ runic single punctuation and U+16EC ᛬ runic multiple punctuation.

In mathematics and science[link]

In SI units the middle dot or NBSP is used as a multiplication sign. Only a comma or full stop (period) may be used as a decimal marker.

In mathematics, a small middle dot can be used to represent product; for example, x ∙ y for the product of x and y. When dealing with scalars, it is interchangeable with the multiplication sign: x ⋅ y means the same thing as x × y, but × is easily confused with the letter x. However, when dealing with vectors, the dot product is distinct from the cross product. This usage has its own designated code point in Unicode, U+2219 (∙), called the "bullet operator".^{[citation needed]} It is also sometimes used to denote the “AND” relationship in formal logic, due to the relationship between these two operations. In situations where the interpunct is used as a decimal point (as noted above, by many mathematics teachers in some countries^{[weasel words]}), then the multiplication sign used is usually a full stop (period), not an interpunct.

In computing, the middle dot is usually used to indicate white space in various software applications such as word processing, graphic design, web layout, desktop publishing or software development programs. In some word processors, interpuncts are used to denote not only hard space or space characters, but also sometimes used to indicate a space when put in paragraph format to show indentations and spaces. This allows the user to see where white space is located in the document and what sizes of white space are used, since normally white space is invisible so tabs, spaces, non-breaking spaces and such are indistinguishable from one another.

In chemistry, the middle dot is used to separate the parts of formulas of addition compounds, mixture salts or solvates (mostly hydrates), such as of copper(II) sulphate pentahydrate, CuSO₄ · 5H₂O.

Keyboard input[link]

On Mac OS X, an interpunct can be input pressing ⌥ Opt+⇧ Shift+9. In the X Window System, it can be input by pressing AltGr+.. On Microsoft Windows, it can be input by pressing Alt and typing 0+1+8+3 on the numeric keypad.

Similar symbols[link]

Characters in the Symbol column above may not render correctly in all browsers.

For most North American Microsoft operating systems using OEM Code page 437, the Alt code is 250.

See also[link]

• Punctuation
• Syllabification

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008)

The Walls are an Irish rock band. They were formed in 1998 by two ex-members of The Stunning.

Members[link]

• Steve Wall
• Joe Wall
• Carl Harms (Guitar/Keyboards) (left February 2004)
• Rory Doyle (Drums)
• Jon O'Connell (Bass) (joined February 2004)

Biography[link]

1998–2000[link]

Brothers Steve and Joe Wall (previously of The Stunning) returned to Ireland after a two-year failed label stint in London. Their Camden housemate Carl Harms joined the band on guitar and keyboard duties. Drummer Rory Doyle joined soon afterwards. They set up their own label, Earshot Records (later changing it to Dirtbird Records) and recorded and released a string of singles. A remix of one of the album tracks, "Bone Deep", clicked with radio and became a nationwide hit. Many of the songs have featured on a number of TV series and feature films such as Bachelors Walk, Dead Bodies, Goldfish Memory and On the Edge (starring Cillian Murphy).

2001–2004[link]

The Walls heard rumour of a second Slane Castle date for U2 (as the first concert had sold out in hours). They sent four copies of their album to the band. Bono loved it and offered The Walls a support slot. That day the band played to their biggest crowd to date – around 80,000 people. "To the Bright and Shining Sun" was their next single. That June they supported Red Hot Chili Peppers. They spent the next year gigging while building their own studio in Dublin.

In February 2004, original member Carl Harms decided to leave the band to make his own record. They recruited bassist Jon O’Connell, who had just 2 weeks to learn all the songs before a two week tour of the new EU accession states: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. "To the Bright and Shining Sun" also featured on the EA Sports soundtrack for the UEFA Euro 2004 official licenced game.

2004 - 2006[link]

For the next album, the band went to Studio Black Box in France to record with producer and ex-The Frames guitarist David Odlum. Originally scheduled for a release date in September 2004, The Walls decided to hold their album until the new year. U2 were releasing How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb that autumn and according to Steve "we thought that it would be a fair and gentlemanly gesture to stand back and give them a fair crack of the whip, so to speak".^{[citation needed]}

In October 2004, they released a taster - "Drowning Pool" - a blistering, spleen-venting, blues explosion, 2min 52sec long. It took people by surprise and divided opinion - exactly what the band wanted. They supported Bob Dylan to a capacity crowd in Galway that summer and played a storming set that showed there were changes afoot in The Walls sound. They christened the album New Dawn Breaking after the final track on the record. It went straight into the Irish charts at No. 5 in its first week of release in June 2005 and has produced four hit singles: "To the Bright and Shining Sun", "Passing Through", "Drowning Pool" and "Black and Blue".

2007[link]

The band kicked off 2007 with a gig in Dubai and are presently negotiating gig offers in France, Italy, the Czech Republic and China. They also supported Crowded House on their Australian comeback tour before retreating into their studio to work on album number three.

2010 - 2012[link]

In 2010, the double A-side "Carrying The Fire"/"Phantom Power" was released. Following this, in March 2011, the "Bird In A Cage" EP was released, of which the title track was revealed to also be on the bands forthcoming album "Stop The Lights", which is to be released in 2012. Following this announcement, the band's new single "Stop The Lights" was released in January 2012. The band are currently using the innovative "Fund It" in order to finish their third album. The welcome newcomer Kevin Crowley from Newcastle West playing the spoons.

Discography[link]

	"To the Bright and Shining Sun" (2002) noicon From the 2005 album " New Dawn Breaking".
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Studio albums[link]

• Hi-Lo (released May 2000).
• New Dawn Breaking (released June 2005) (reached No. 5 in Irish charts)
• Stop The Lights (released 2012)

Singles and albums[link]

• "The Night I Called It A Day" (Single, released Feb 1999)
• "Broken Boy" (Single, released Sept 1999)
• "Something's Wrong" (Single, released Apr 2000)
• Hi-Lo (Album, released May 2000). A remix of one of the album tracks, Bone Deep, was popular in Ireland. Some songs featured on TV series and feature films: Bachelors Walk, Dead Bodies, Goldfish Memory and On the Edge (starring Cillian Murphy).

• "To the Bright and Shining Sun" (Single, released 2002) reached No. 11 in the Irish charts.
• "Drowning Pool" (single, released 2004)
• New Dawn Breaking (Album, released June 2005) reached No. 5 in Irish charts and has produced four hit singles: "To the Bright and Shining Sun", "Passing Through", "Drowning Pool" and "Black and Blue".

• "Carrying the Fire" / "Phantom Power" (double-A sided single, released Jun 2010)
• "Bird In A Cage EP" (4 Track EP, released Mar 2011)

Cover versions[link]

• Cover version of Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody" on Even Better than the Real Thing Vol. 1
• Cover version of Natasha Bedingfield's "These Words" on Even Better than the Real Thing Vol. 2
• Cover version of U2's "With or without you" on Even Better than the Real Thing Vol. 3

Career highlights[link]

• Supported U2 at Slane Castle, 2001
• Supported Red Hot Chili Peppers, 2002
• Supported Bob Dylan, Galway, 2005
• Supported Crowded House, Australia, 2007

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official band website, contains free MP3s; gig info, photos, Walls shop, press releases etc.
• The Walls at MySpace, contains some sample MP3s.