Punctuation centuries meant that a standard system of punctuation was urgently required." The introduction of a standard system of punctuation has also been attributed to the Venetian printers Aldus Manutius and his grandson. They have been credited with popularizing the practice of ending sentences with the colon or full stop, inventing the semicolon, making occasional use of parentheses and creating the modern comma by lowering the virgule. By 1566, Aldus Manutius the Younger was able to state that the main object of punctuation was the clarification of syntax. By the 19th century, punctuation in the western world had evolved "to classify
Punctuation of English would prefer coffee." The semicolon is also used to separate list items when the list items contain commas: ""She saw three men: Jamie, who came from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man."" The slash or stroke or solidus is often used to indicate alternatives, such as ""his/her"", or two equivalent meanings or spellings, such as ""grey/gray"". The slash is used in certain set phrases, such as the conjunction ""and/or"". Punctuation of English Punctuation in the English language helps the reader to understand a sentence through visual means other than just the letters of