Editing Interpunct (section)

=== English ===
[[File:Mayflower Compact Bradford.jpg|right|thumb|Bradford's transcription of the [[Mayflower Compact]] ]]

In [[British English|British]] [[typography]], the '''space dot''' was once used as the formal [[decimal point]]. Its use was advocated by laws and can still be found in some UK-based academic journals such as ''[[The Lancet]]''.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Lancet – Formatting guidelines for electronic submission of manuscripts |url=http://download.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/authors/artwork-guidelines.pdf |access-date=2017-04-25}}</ref> When the [[pound sterling]] was [[decimalisation|decimalised]] in 1971, the official advice issued was to write decimal amounts with a raised point (for example, {{code|£21·48}}) and to use a decimal point "on the line" only when typesetting constraints made it unavoidable. However, this usage had already been declining since the 1968 ruling by the [[Ministry of Technology]] to use the [[full stop]] as the decimal point,<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1038/218111c0 |title=Victory on Points |journal=Nature |volume=218 |issue = 5137 |page=111 |year=1968 |bibcode= 1968Natur.218S.111. |doi-access=free}}</ref> not only because of that ruling but also because it is [[Decimal separator#Current standards|the widely-adopted international standard]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/pdf/sp811.pdf#10.5.2 |title=Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI) |page=37 |first1=Ambler |last1=Thompson |first2=Barry N. |last2=Taylor |date=March 2008 |publisher=[[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] |access-date=28 March 2018}}</ref> and because the standard [[UK keyboard layout]] (for typewriters and computers) has only the full stop. The space dot is still used by some in handwriting.

In the early modern era, full stops (periods) were sometimes written as interpuncts (for example in the depicted 1646 transcription of the [[Mayflower Compact]]).

In the [[Shavian alphabet]], interpuncts replace [[capitalization]] as the marker of proper nouns. The dot is placed at the beginning of a word.