Household Words, No. 26, September 21, 1850

words removed
19,425
marks left
3,855
words a sentence
23.2
most used mark
,

Its punctuation fingerprint: each mark's share, on the same scale as every book on the shelf.

Its punctuation twin, the closest fingerprint on the shelf: Society as I Have Found It, Ward McAllister. More twins

Charles Dickens on the shelf

14 books by Charles Dickens are on the shelf. Its fingerprint is the 9th closest of the 14 to their average. Held out and guessed from its marks alone, the shelf takes it for Edgar Allan Poe. Of the 623 other authors on the shelf, Charles Dickens's punctuation is closest to Grant Allen's.

Charles Dickens's average fingerprint

Charles Dickens on the numbers page

Marks per 1,000 words, except words per sentence and dialogue (the share of words inside quotation marks).
This bookCharles Dickens's averageEvery book's median
Semicolons12.19.77.2
Commas78.695.476.6
Colons1.31.51.6
Exclamation marks3.77.02.8
Question marks2.25.83.7
Words per sentence23.216.317.0
Dialogue10%36%22%

Every mark in reading order, left to right, top to bottom. Sentence endings are pink.

Read your own or go back to the shelf

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