This page uses IPA notation for orthographic or other linguistic analysis. For the meaning of how ⟨⟩, ||,//, and []are used here, see this page.
In typography, the pilcrow (¶) is a grapheme used to identify a paragraph. In editorial production the pilcrow typographic character is also known as the paragraph mark, the paragraph sign, the paragraph symbol, the paraph, and the blind P.
In writing and editorial practice, authors and editors use the pilcrow grapheme to indicate the start of separate paragraphs, and to identify a new paragraph within a long block of text without paragraph indentions, as in the book An Essay on Typography (1931), by Eric Gill. In the Middle Ages, the practice of rubrication (type in red-ink) used a red pilcrow to indicate the beginning of a different train of thought within the author's narrative without paragraphs.
The letterform of the pilcrow resembles a minuscule q or a mirrored majuscule P, with a usually-doubled backbone reaching from the descender to the ascender height.
The bowl on the left side can be filled or empty, and occasionally extends far enough downward that the character resembles a mirrored D. The backbone is usually straight, but in some fonts curves toward the bowl.
Origin and name
The word pilcrow is a vernacular form of paragraph, showing dissimilation (compare Old Frenchpelagraphe) and folk-etymological alteration. The word paragraph ultimately derives from Greek παράγραφος (parágraphos), meaning "written beside".
Use in Ancient Greek
Three short paragraphs on making gunpowder in the manuscript GNM 3227a (Germany, c. 1400); the first paragraph is marked with an early form of the pilcrow sign, the two following paragraphs are introduced with litterae notabiliores (enlarged letters).Pilcrow signs in an excerpt from a page of Villanova, Rudimenta Grammaticæ, printed by Spindeler in 1500 in Valencia.Possible development from capitulum to modern paragraph symbol.
The first way to divide sentences into groups in Ancient Greek was the original παράγραφος (parágraphos), which was a horizontal line in the margin to the left of the main text. As the paragraphos became more popular, the horizontal line eventually changed into the Greek letter gamma (⟨Γ⟩, ⟨γ⟩) and later into litterae notabiliores, which were enlarged letters at the beginning of a paragraph.
Use in Latin
The above notation soon changed to the letter ⟨K⟩, an abbreviation for the Latin word caput, which translates as "head", i.e. it marks the head of a new thesis. Eventually, to mark a new section, the Latin word capitulum, which translates as "little head", was used, and the letter ⟨C⟩ came to mark a new section, or chapter, in 300 BC.
Use in Middle Ages
In the 1100s, ⟨C⟩ had completely replaced ⟨K⟩ as the symbol for a new chapter. Rubricators eventually added one or two vertical bars to the C to stylize it (as ⸿); the "bowl" of the symbol was filled in with dark ink and eventually looked like the modern pilcrow, ¶.
Scribes would often leave space before paragraphs to allow rubricators to add a hand-drawn pilcrow in contrasting ink. With the introduction of the printing press from the late medieval period on, space before paragraphs was still left for rubricators to complete by hand. If it was not practical to complete the rubrication, books might be sold with the spaces before the paragraphs left blank, thus creating the typographical practice of indentation.
Modern use
Opening page of Genesis from the Doves Bible (Doves Press, 1902): pilcrow used as a verse marker
The pilcrow remains in use in modern documents in the following ways:
In legal writing, it is often used whenever one cites a specific paragraph within pleadings, law review articles, statutes, or other legal documents and materials. It is also used to indicate a paragraph break within quoted text.
In academic writing, it is sometimes[citation needed] used as an in-text referencing tool to make reference to a specific paragraph from a document that does not contain page numbers, allowing the reader to find where that particular idea or statistic was sourced. The pilcrow sign followed by a number indicates the paragraph number from the top of the page. It is rarely used when citing books or journal articles.
In proofreading, it indicates an instruction that one paragraph should be split into two or more separate paragraphs. The proofreader inserts the pilcrow at the point where a new paragraph should begin.
In some high-churchAnglican and Ordinariate churches, it is used in the order of service to introduce "stage directions" or other instructions concerning the conduct of the liturgy.These may indicate when the congregation should stand, sit, or kneel, direct the movements and actions of the clergy and other ministers, specify who participates in particular portions of the service, or provide similar ceremonial instructions. King's College, Cambridge uses this convention in the service booklet for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. This is analogous to the writing of these instructions in red in some rubrication conventions.
As the toolbaricon used to toggle the display of formatting marks, such as tabs and paragraph breaks.
As the symbol for a paragraph break, shown when display is requested.
The pilcrow may indicate a footnote in a convention that uses a set of distinct typographic symbols in turn to distinguish between footnotes on a given page; it is the sixth in a series of footnote symbols beginning with the asterisk. (The modern convention is to use numbers or letters in superscript form.)
Unicode additionally defines U+204B⁋REVERSED PILCROW SIGN, U+2761❡CURVED STEM PARAGRAPH SIGN ORNAMENT, and U+2E3F⸿CAPITULUM. The capitulum character is obsolete, having been replaced by the pilcrow, but is included in Unicode for backward compatibility and historic studies.
In Sanskrit and other Indian languages, text blocks are commonly written in stanzas. Two vertical bars, ॥, called a double daṇḍa, are the functional equivalent of a pilcrow.
In Thai, the character fongman (๏) marks the beginning of a stanza and paiyannoisara a (ฯ ะ) or angkhankhu sara a (๚ ะ) marks the end of a stanza.
In China, the ideograpic number zero (〇), which has been used as a zero character since the 12th century, has been used to mark paragraphs in older Western-made books such as the Chinese Union Version of the Bible.
References
12"Notes, references and bibliographies: Notes". Style manual (3ed.). Canberra: Australian government publishing service. 1978.
123M. B. Parkes (1993). "The Development of the General Repertory of Punctuation". Pause and Effect: Punctuation in the West. Berkeley: University of California Press. p.43. ISBN9780520079410.
↑M. B. Parkes (1993). "Introduction: Glossary of Technical Terms". Pause and Effect: Punctuation in the West. Berkeley: University of California Press. p.10. ISBN9780520079410.
↑M. B. Parkes (1993). "1. Antiquity: Aids for Inexperienced Readers and the Prehistory of Punctuation". Pause and Effect: Punctuation in the West. Berkeley: University of California Press. p.12. ISBN9780520079410.
↑Hoefler, Jonathan (12 March 2008). "Pilcrow & Capitulum". Typography.com. Hoefler&Co. Retrieved 4 November 2022. It's tempting to recognize the symbol as a "P for paragraph," though the resemblance is incidental: in its original form, the mark was an open C crossed by a vertical line or two, a scribal abbreviation for capitulum, the Latin word for chapter.
↑David Sacks (2003). "K and its Kompetitors". The Alphabet: Unravelling the Mystery of the Alphabet from A to Z. London: Hutchinson. p.206. ISBN9780091795061.
↑Tschichold, Jan (1991) [1975]. "Why the Beginnings of Paragraphs Must Be Indented". In Bringhurst, Robert (ed.). Ausgewählte Aufsätze über Fragen der Gestalt des Buches und der Typographie[The form of the book: essays on the morality of good design]. Translated by Hajo Hadeler. London: Lund Humphries. pp.105–109. ISBN9780853316237. OCLC220984255.
