Comma certain homonyms. The comma therefore functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ("ó,ti", "whatever") from ("óti", "that"). The enumeration or ideographic comma——is used in Chinese, Japanese punctuation, and somewhat in Korean punctuation. In the People's Republic of China and in North/South Korea, this comma ( , , "dùnhào") is usually used only to separate items in lists, while in Japan it is the more common form of comma (, "tōten", "clause mark"). In documents that mix Japanese and Latin scripts, the full-width comma () is used; this is the standard form of comma (
Comma signified by a dot at the bottom, middle, or top of the line. For a short passage (a "komma"), a "media distinctio" dot was placed mid-level ( · ). This is the origin of the concept of a comma, although the name came to be used for the mark itself instead of the clause it separated. The mark used today is descended from a diagonal slash, or "virgula suspensiva" ( / ), used from the 13th to 17th centuries to represent a pause. The modern comma was first used by Aldus Manutius. In general, the comma shows that the words