Dots, Dots, And More Dots ...

Over the years I have heard the same argument used by those who thought it was unnecessary to write the vowels in their language.

 

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I'm a graphic designer with around thirty years' experience practicing typography, but I was unfamiliar with the term interpunct. I would have called them bullets (which I did in an earlier post). @jamesicus thank you for bringing this term to light.

I did some searching online for definitions. Apparently the only difference between interpunct and bullet is that a bullet is used to mark the beginning of a list; an interpunct is used to space words. Otherwise they're the same; weight doesn't matter (depends on typeface and styling). Also, bullets or interpuncts don't necessarily have to be circular. They could be square or triangular or some other shape. I've used checkmark symbols as bullets.

I have used interpuncts before. But I just called them bullets! On a Mac, typing Option+8 will produce a bullet — or interpunct — which term is correct depends on the usage.

The default is •, but if I choose a different typeface in the Character window, I can get ∙

Same symbol (Option+8), different styling.

Anyway, after thirty years I'm still learning. I never imagined that I would learn new typographic terminology from studying ancient coins, or from a discussion about ancient coins. There are always discoveries to be made. I really like the term interpunct because it's so much more descriptive than bullet, as these symbols are used on ancient coins. Inter = between, punct = punctuation. Punctuation between words. Much better than dot.

 

And, in turn, thank you for that informative post, @benhur767.

 

Just noticed there were dots between the abbreviated words in the obverse inscription of this sestertius:

DIVAE FAVSTIN•AVG•MATR•CASTROR