# Lack of final periods in old magazine captions **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 3, 2018, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486 "2018-05-03T00:42:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/1 "2018-05-03T00:42:12Z")
When I was a kid, I loved reading all my dad’s old issues of _Popular Mechanics_ and _Popular Science_. I noticed that none of the captions that went with the photos or other illustrations had no periods. Does anybody know why? Is there a term for this practice? Did other mags do this? If you need examples, just click this link and look around: [Popular Mechanics - Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=G9QDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&rview=1&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false) My user name is in honor of my father who was a master printer. I probably asked him back then, but I don’t remember what he told me! ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/2 "2018-05-03T01:28:00Z")
It’s usually because the blurbs of text are not sentences. Periods should only be used to end sentences. You don’t see periods at the end of news headlines, do you? It’s the same with a caption, unless it’s in the form of a complete sentence. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/3 "2018-05-03T02:01:22Z")
Click on my link. In the magazine, go to page 22. See “Deskmen typically earn $150 a week” On page 23, read “Roy Clarke (right), started out as an assembler, has worked up to skilled welder after two years of training” Page 85, “Bad-guy drivers, who put a tailgating, lane switching show on the road find themselves performing on TV and starring in a replay for the judge” These seem like good sentences to me. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/4 "2018-05-03T02:06:13Z")
I never noticed that, but one thing I did truly love. In the old format of Scientific American magazine, picture captions were always composed and typeset so the bottom line also justified right. Not just the caption (3-6 lines) justified right, but the bottom line always to match. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/5 "2018-05-03T02:07:52Z")
Not just in old issues. > **[Amazon.com: Popular Mechanics : Magazine Subscriptions](https://www.amazon.com/Hearst-Magazines-Popular-Mechanics/dp/B001THPA26)** > > From practical know-how to the latest scientific breakthroughs, Popular Mechanics is the knowledge to command and appreciate your world. I think periods would look odd ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/6 "2018-05-03T02:11:56Z")
I’m talking about captions inside the magazine, under photos or other illustrations. I checked the May 1980 issue and proper periods were there. Also there in Nov. 2005 issue. BTW, the second sentence of my original post should read “I noticed that none of the captions that went with the photos or other illustrations had final periods.” ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/7 "2018-05-03T02:18:24Z")
Here’s an issue from 2005. I’m seeing a lot of captions without periods. > **[Popular Mechanics](https://books.google.com/books?id=RdMDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=popular%2Bmechanics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj9gcrivOjaAhVLnOAKHQoUDgMQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=popular%20mechanics&f=false)** > > Popular Mechanics inspires, instructs and influences readers to help them master the modern world. Whether it’s practical DIY home-improvement tips, gadgets and digital technology, information on the newest cars or the latest breakthroughs in science... ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/8 "2018-05-03T02:35:17Z")
I see 3 on page 24, but they’re more like labels, and they are sentence fragments. Look on page 80. The caption is a sentence about incense, and it has a period. That period would not have been there in the '60s. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/9 "2018-05-03T03:00:38Z")
Check out p. 122 in the OPs link. All the captions there have periods. Why the difference? Those captions are not justified. All the other captions are justified so that they fill the space. It’s hard enough to justify everything without adding in an extra character that’s going to annoy you just often enough to throw things at the wall. You don’t think of the casualness of everyday culture affecting magazines, but before the 1970s the industry would have scorned ragged right captions as being sloppy and unprofessional. But magazines like everything else after the 60s started relaxing their rigidity. Anything went. Including, horrors, ragged right formatting. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/10 "2018-05-03T03:14:09Z")
My dad hated forced right justification. He thought it created annoying spacing as in the (needing a period) caption on page 121. No, the whale cuts labels don’t count as captions, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/11 "2018-05-03T08:05:58Z")
Advertising statements seem to be hit and miss. On this sampling of billboards, it looks about half and half have periods. [https://www.google.com/search?q=billboards+advertising&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq1ICUienaAhXFa7wKHUZ6DGUQ\_AUICigB&biw=904&bih=460](https://www.google.com/search?q=billboards+advertising&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq1ICUienaAhXFa7wKHUZ6DGUQ_AUICigB&biw=904&bih=460) Captions, especially short ones, quite often are not complete grammatical sentences, but sentence fragments or phrases. Since many captions are not complete sentences (“A boy throwing a ball”), editors might have assumed a no-period policy, and let that stand for all captions whether or not they are complete sentences. A period where there should not be one might be even more glaring. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/12 "2018-05-03T10:29:18Z")
It’s not unusual to leave off punctuation for a single, stand-alone sentence. You don’t generally see punctuation on a stop sign, for instance. The purpose of a period is to indicate the end of a sentence. If there’s no more text, that isn’t strictly necessary. Given issues of spacing (it was, after all, newspapers that championed dropping the Oxford comma to save space), leaving off the period made sense. That’s less of an issue now, but tradition and inertia. ( coupled by the fact it causes no problems in comprehension) keep things the way it was. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/13 "2018-05-03T10:58:37Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > My user name is in honor of my father who was a master printer. And his name was California Jobcase? ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/14 "2018-05-03T11:32:38Z")
> **[California job case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_job_case)** > > A California job case is a kind of type case: a compartmentalized wooden box used to store movable type used in letterpress printing. It was the most popular and accepted of the job case designs in America. The California job case took its name from the Pacific Coast location of the foundries that made the case popular. > > The defining characteristic of the California job case is the layout, documented by J. L. Ringwalt in the American Encyclopaedia of Printing in 1871, as used by San Francisco p... ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/15 "2018-05-03T14:16:39Z")
In the OP’s link, on page 24, there is a caption that ends with " . . . Van Nuys, Calif.", ending with the period demanded by the abbreviation. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/16 "2018-05-03T14:23:02Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > And his name was California Jobcase? That was a long time ago. He was California Territory Jobcase. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/17 "2018-05-03T14:46:51Z")
I have checked several other magazines from the same decade, and they use periods at the end of sentences used as captions. I wonder if it was just a Hearst-imposed style issue. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/18 "2018-05-03T15:25:49Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > I have checked several other magazines from the same decade, and they use periods at the end of sentences used as captions. I wonder if it was just a Hearst-imposed style issue. Were they justified or ragged right? ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/19 "2018-05-03T17:15:52Z")
Ragged, it seems. Curiously, in the may '90 edition of Popular Mechanics, I see plenty of justified article text, but the captions aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486/20 "2018-05-03T17:51:18Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > But magazines like everything else after the 60s started relaxing their rigidity. Anything went. Including, horrors, ragged right formatting. The advent of modern typography allows us to right-justify text which cannot be justified in any other fashion. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-final-periods-in-old-magazine-captions/813486.md?page=2)