When: The Art of Perfect Timing

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Temporal Punctuation

”The reason he [Jared L. Loughner, who shot Representative Gabrielle Giffords] was able to be tackled was he had to pause to reload,” said Dennis Henigan, vice president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence…. ”The problem is, he didn't have to pause to reload until he'd already expended 30 rounds.” [italics mine]

—Jo Becker and Michael Luo¹

Temporal punctuation refers to how we divide the continuous flow of time into separate units by creating steps, stages, beginnings, endings, midpoints, and deadlines. Similar to the commas and periods in a sentence, these marks of temporal punctuation tell us where we are and when to start, stop, or pause. For example, a company will use the end of the calendar or fiscal year ...