Illustrations, How to Use
Lord Timothy Dexter humorously left punctuation out, illustrating diverse approaches to preaching and teaching.
When the eccentric Lord Timothy Dexter of Newburyport wrote his famous book, entitled "A Pikel for the Knowing Ones," there happened to be many doctrines abroad in the land regarding punctuation; and as many diverse systems appeared for the location of commas, semicolons, periods, dashes, &c., as there were works published. To obviate this difficulty, and to give every one an opportunity of suiting himself, his lordship left out all marks of punctuation from the body of his work and, at the ending of the book, had printed four or five pages of nothing but stops and pauses with which he said the reader could pepper his dish as he chose. American Anecdotes.