What's the name of the asterisks that divide chapters?

January 28, 2006 11:20 AM

Books are divided into chapters. Is there a name for the row of asterisks that divides a chapter?

Something like scene ellipses, or scene breaks? Subchapter markers? They aren't always used to change scenes, and sometimes they aren't even asterisks. Sometimes there are 3, sometimes there are 5, and sometimes they are replaced by a custom graphic (e.g. in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle). Any ideas?

(Bonus points if someone can tell me whether I should've written asterices.)

posted by hoverboards don't work on water to writing & language (17 comments total)

At Distributed Proofreaders, they call them "thought breaks," though it seems to be a term unique to that group. (A google search of "thought break" + asterisks turns up some hits on other sites, but it looks like most of them are DP/Project Gutenberg-related.)
posted by alyxstarr at 11:50 AM on January 28, 2006

According to Noah Lukeman, authour of "A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation", what you are describing is known as a "section break" (Link goes to Google Cached page, to avoid registration.)
posted by Isosceles at 12:02 PM on January 28, 2006

These are sometimes used to separate subsections of chapters or relatively long sections of text; they are also used to separate subsections normally divided by empty space if the sections happen to break across pages (to unambiguously mark the division). The custom graphic itself can be called a "flower", "flueron", "ornament", or "glyph".

On preview: "section break" sounds like a reasonable generic term; I haven't yet seen a different term (or that one, even) in a(n incomplete) search of a few online typography glossaries.
posted by yz at 12:10 PM on January 28, 2006

I think asterism is what you're looking for.
posted by MadamM at 12:17 PM on January 28, 2006

As far as I know there is no term that specifically means "a row of asterisks." The asterisks themselves are not exactly a "section break," but instead a means of dealing with a section break in text.

A section break is simply a place where the author wants to break the text, for for reasons of style, chronology, logic, whatever, and so it's up to the type designer to find a way to visually represent that. Except perhaps in some unusual cases, these asterisks are not part of the text of the book, they are just ornamentation for the book design, like drop caps and page headers.

The simplest way to indicate a section break is to just leave a blank space between paragraphs, but designers often like to use some kind of glyph, ornament, etc. Many books (primarily non-fiction) will use numerals to indicate sections, and these are called "section numbers" but that's the only time I'm aware that there is a specific name for the thing that goes in the space.

If you're discussing a particular book, the you could say "section break" to refer to those lines of asterisks, but if you're speaking generally, saying "section breaks" wouldn't necessarily mean asterisks, it just means the break itself.
posted by camcgee at 12:33 PM on January 28, 2006

MadamM: "asterism", according to that Wikipedia entry, describes the triple-asterisk symbol used to denote a section separation, not the separation itself.
posted by yz at 12:37 PM on January 28, 2006

I'm probably wrong, but the poster did ask for the name of "the row of asterisks that divides a chapter", and asterism seems close.
posted by MadamM at 1:01 PM on January 28, 2006

asterism seems close.

Only if you don't know the difference between a row and a cluster.
posted by camcgee at 1:17 PM on January 28, 2006

camcgee: From the Wikipedia page for asterism, "Often, this symbol is replaced with three, sometimes more, consecutive asterisks or dots. Otherwise, an extra space between paragraphs is used."

So it seems as if you could call the row of asterisks a bastardized asterism of sorts.
posted by thebabelfish at 1:35 PM on January 28, 2006

I am a copy editor (among other things) and one of my tasks is to code unset manuscripts (ie, printed-out word files) for the typesetters. When I code one of these breaks, it is as "space break." This is for both fiction and nonfiction.
posted by dame at 1:41 PM on January 28, 2006

Also, the plural of asterisk is asterisks. Just check the dictionary (Merriam Webster is often a nice choice); it will tell you if a word has a nonstandard plural and what that is. It will also tell you if there are many different choices of plural.
posted by dame at 1:44 PM on January 28, 2006

Thanks everybody. It seems section breaks or space breaks are the name of the problem, and the row of asterisks is the solution. As for an actual name, I'm not entirely convinced by the Wikipedia definition. There is a useful discussion here, but I'd like to see a non-wiki reference.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:02 PM on January 28, 2006

Well, as mentioned above, in some cases, section breaks are just represented by extra white space (and often by a drop cap [when the initial letter takes up more than one line] or the para. following beginning flush left [that is, without an indent]) and some glyph, asterisks or otherwise, is only used when the space break comes at the end of a page. Just for precision.
posted by dame at 4:03 PM on January 28, 2006

An old typesetting handbook I used to have (possibly the ITU one) called it a dinkus. Mind you, typesetters will give characters strange (and rude, if possible) names at the slightest possible provocation.
posted by scruss at 5:55 PM on January 28, 2006

Much as I hate to quibble with my esteemed colleague dame, if "some glyph, asterisks or otherwise, is only used when the space break comes at the end of a page," then space break is not the desired answer, which is specifically "a name for the row of asterisks." The first customer review of this book begins: "Did you know that a row of three asterisks is known as a dinkus?" So I think scruss has the answer. Well done.
posted by languagehat at 6:09 AM on January 29, 2006

Languagehat: If you look at the more inside part, the OP seems to be looking for both the name of the things and the name for the phenomenon. The phenomenon is a space break. You can signify it in a number of ways, including with a dinkus, which can be employed either always or at the bottom of a page. I was really responding to the notion of a soace-break being a "problem" and the dinkus being "the solution" in that case. It is a solution. But yeas, based on the way you read me and the question, scruss is correct.
posted by dame at 3:31 PM on January 29, 2006

I guess those years typesetting dictionaries wasn't wasted, then.

Quirky Qwerty isn't as good a book as it might have been, but is a diverting brief read.
posted by scruss at 8:57 AM on February 4, 2006