Those Annoying Little Lines

As someone who reads and writes far too much for her own good, and who got stuck in every high school English class that focused on grammar, I’ve pretty much memorized the system of punctuation, spelling, etc. Of course, it helps that I’m a linguistics major, but that’s irrelevant here. Linguists don’t like written systems, and especially not the non-word bits.

I’ve had a call for this piece, which will be on basic punctuation, and subsequent pieces discussing terminology, and feel that they are probably more clueless people out here, so here goes. Hopefully it’ll be understandable, unlike what teachers thrown at students in the name of education, and maybe even a bit funny. I’ll try.

. The Period

This is the little dot that ends a sentence. Its only job is to end a sentence. It doesn’t matter how long and convoluted the sentence may be — it might even have other exciting punctuation marks, as well as a bunch of clauses, and phrases — but no matter what, it will still end in a period.

! The Exclamation Mark

The exclamation mark ends an exclamation. That’s pretty much a no-brainer. But what’s an exclamation? Anything you feel like shouting or being happy about. For instance, “Hello!” is an exclamation, as is “Great to see you!”, “Yup!”, “Woot!”, and “Go away!”. It gets annoying if overused though, so watch out.

? The Question Mark

Another no-brainer, this one. It ends questions, which are anything you ask. So, “How are you?” is a question, and so are “Are you coming?”, “Going somewhere?”, and “You think that will work?”. Easy way to tell without knowing special grammar terms and things: say it out loud and if your voice gets higher at the end, it’s a question.

, The Comma

Everybody hates commas, because the way they’re taught to use them is incredibly complicated. Honestly, it’s not as hard as everyone makes it out to be. Commas have two basic uses. They separate items in a list (“eggs, flour, sugar, milk, salt, chocolate”) and they mark the ends of clauses, or sentences within sentences, and phrases, like descriptor type things. (Everything after that last comma in the previous sentence is a phrase.). An example of the clause one: “John went to the store, but they didn’t have cookies, so he went home.” Every time there’s a comma in that sentence, it’s the end of a sentence, basically.

The rule of thumb I use for commas is to see where I want to put pauses for emphasis (not breaths, though those usually coincide with the pauses). For instance, if you read “John went to, the store but they didn’t, have cookies so, he went home” aloud with pauses at each comma, it sounds weird.

’ The Apostrophe

Also fairly simple to use. It shows up when people shorten or combine words, to show where they’ve left letters out (haven’t, she’s, I’m, they’re). It also shows up when you want to talk about ownership. It’s John’s cat, the man’s bicycle, and a woman with a big hat’s house.

; The Semicolon

The best use of this is not at all. Teachers and people just don’t like seeing them. They say it’s a cop-out and people never use them right. I’m with them, because it’s hard to judge exactly when this is needed. Basically, if you’re listing stuff and having to use commas for particular items like “my big, friendly, goofy dog,” then it’s going to get confusing what’s part of an item really fast. Semicolons get used to break up the items of the list, in that case. They also show up when you’re using the conjunction however — “John said he loves her</i>; however</i> I disagree.” The semicolon gets confusing when you’re trying to link two sentences with it (yes, that’s allowable). How much different is “The pen is white; the pencil is black” from “The pen is white. The pencil is black”? Yep, not much!

Basic rule: avoid.

: The Colon

This has nothing to do with the intestines. Colons introduce lists and big quotes set into the text

like this, just longer.

If you’ve got a point you want to make prominent, you can use a colon there too. Take a look at the last sentence of “Question Mark” and you’ll get the idea. Finally, some people like to do colons for anything people say (and usually ignore quotation marks). As for as I can tell, they’re mostly British, and dead. For instance, “Harry said: I love you.”

- The Hyphen

Only used in compound words, and not in all of those. Use a dictionary.

() The Parentheses

These are used to add little bits of extra information (like this), especially when you want to make people notice those little bits (say they’re an idea you’ve had that doesn’t quite fit into the argument but you want it in there anyway). They’re also used for references — (Smith 2006), (lines 3-6),  (see also Smith 2005).

— The Dash

This one’s fun! I used it in my intro, and in the parentheses stuff. Basically, dashes get used to make asides and extra information more prominent than the parentheses would. They’re not used for references.

“” The Quotation Marks or Double Quotes

In America, these get used for indicating direct speech (He said, “I love you.”) and for setting words and phrases aside as euphemistic, sarcastic, or unusual. For instance, people “visit the powder room,” have “fun” in lectures, and use “sweet” to mean “cool, interesting, exciting.” See how I also use quotation marks for definitions and vocab words? That’s valid too.

There are a couple punctuation things to note regarding quotation marks. First, all directly quoted speech has a comma right before it’s introduced. Second, if a quotation mark ends the sentence, the punctuation goes before it, if appropriate (Did he say, “I love you”? vs. Did he say, “I love you?”).

Weird fact: the British tend to use single quotation marks for these functions.

Quotation marks are also used to indicate titles of short works, like poems, songs, many paintings, articles, short stories, etc. As far as I know, the Americans and British agree on this.

‘’ Single Quotation Marks

In America, these are used for quotations and “set-apart words” that already have quotation marks around them. For instance, John said, “Mary told me he said, ‘I love you,’ but I don’t believe it.”

I believe the British used double quotes for this, but I could be wrong.

… Ellipsis

The ellipsis is used to indicate trailing off of speech (“So … what do you want to do?”), or omissions of information from quotes (“Shall I compare thee … more temperate”). See how I’ve put spaces on either side? Good! That’s it for ellipsis, then, just don’t overuse it, because … it gets … irritating, unless you’ve got a reason.

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There you have it (I think)! The entire English punctuation system in one fell swoop! You’ll find more examples of pretty much everything discussed here if you search this chapter for them. I hope this helps at least a few people understand the system better. Gods know I’ve had it drilled into me long enough. Next stop, when time permits: the terminology you’ll encounter in high school English (noun, verb, phrase, possessive). I’ll be going into complicated stuff later that you’ll need to know that for. Plus it’s confusing for most people.