Apostrophe

The rhetorical figure apostrophe shows up in Ad Herennium, 100 BC, as “the figure which expresses grief or indignation by means of an address to some man or city or place or object…” (283). It is also noted that the appeal has to do with an audience present or absent, and dead or alive. What is now known today as the exclamation point was called an apostrophe at one point in time. Since it has appeals to audience’s emotions or pathos, the word excaimatio was closely associated with it (www.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm). Excalimatio relates to the use of punctuation at the end of the sentence. For example: O tempora! O mores! Cicero (http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm).
Apostrophe is used up to 1500 AD, and less than a hundred years after that a critical turn takes place and apostrophe is known now as a possession to something. Apostrophe can also be…”the ejecting of a letter or syllabi out of one word” (http;//dictoiinary.oed.edu). Now the word becomes a symbol in our language looking like this ’. Rules of the new symbol and replacement of letters take over the writing system. Although the symbol appeared before it was not until 1600 that it was named. Currently when apostrophe is searched, the possessive uses are outlined (purdeowl.edu). Was the intention of this rhetorical symbol to turn into an English lesson taught in 3rd grade?
If not, the first meaning of the apostrophe has taken on a new term or word today in the rhetorical sphere. It is now called the second persona. Second persona encompasses most of what the apostrophe was meant to be in Ad Herennium, while still possessing the appeal to pathos in speech giving. Black mentions the second persona as… “What equally well solicits our attention is hat there is a second persona also implied by a discourse, and that persona is its implied auditor…We are told that he (second persona or audience) is sometimes fitting in the judgment of the past…present (or future)… depending on whether the discourse is…epideictic, or deliberative” (89). Black goes on to mention appealing the audience and their age, and the audience’s feelings towards the subject. Black continues to explain the function of the discourse, which the author of the rhetorical handbook would be pleased with stating a “how to” craft the speech to fit the audience, and how the “discourse” chosen will help influence the audience.

www.purdueowl.com
http://www.uky.edu/AS/Classics/rhetoric.html#10
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_idioms.html
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50010512?query_type=word&queryword=apostrophe&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=2&search_id=Ujvl-JTE6O3-11195&hilite=50010512
Silva rhetoricae
Rose, Gillian. "Of Derrida's spirit." New Literary History 24.n2 (Spring 1993): 447(19). Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale. Kansas State University Libraries. 4 Apr. 2008 http://find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodId=EAIM.
April