Powerful punctuation

Proper punctuation may not win you friends, make you money or help you rule the world – but it can’t hurt…

It may be a well-established fact that you don’t need punctuation to understand a sentence. We can get the gist of just about anything, no matter how horridly placed the apostrophes. But if you want your writing to look sharp, pay attention to these punctuation tips – essential to the toolkit of any powerful writer.

The semi-colon is awesome; try it.

Perhaps the most feared and misunderstood of all punctuation, the humble semi-colon has a bad rap. Yet, if we used it in our writing as often as we invoke it while speaking, it might be as common as commas.

USE: The point of a semi-colon is to link two related, but complete, sentences. They belong where you would use the period; if you can’t use a period, however, don’t use a semi-colon.

EXCEPTION: Semi-colons are used in place of commas for clarity when listing long, complex items or points with commas already in them.

Getting possessive

Apostrophes have a couple of important and practical uses in the English language: in place of missing characters in conjunctions (e.g., can’t for cannot, or don’t for do not) or in dates (the ‘90s were crazy).

For most people, though, it’s when the apostrophe gets possessive that things start to fall apart.

USE: Possessive apostrophes come before or after an “s” – like so:

• The cat’s pajamas are sleepwear for a single cat.
• The cats’ owner said that two felines in pajamas were quite enough.

EXCEPTION: The word it’s means it is. Similar to his, hers and yours – its is the possessive form of it.

NOTE: Not sure what to do when a person’s name ends in “s” ? Fortunately, both James’ doll collection and James’s doll collection are correct.

RULE: Apostrophes are never, never used to pluralize. Ever. “Restroom’s” does not mean more than one restroom. It implies that something – perhaps the toilet – belongs to the room.

“Quotation” marks

Whether you favor the single quote (British), or the double (American), getting this right has a lot to do with intent. When you put quotation marks around a regular word (not part of a title or an actual quote), you might as well say “so-called.” You’re actually questioning the credibility of the source. For instance, nobody wants fresh-baked “bread.”

Well, is it bread or not?

I exclaim!

Today it seems that every text is shouting at us with full caps and exclamation points.

If you’re over the age of 16, however, do not attempt to emphasize simple statements by using an exclamation mark. Really. In recapping your day on your blog, do not write, “I totally got arrested!!”

The exclamation mark is actually reserved for true exclamations or commands. For instance, “Halt! Police!” Although, we suppose then you could say, “What a lousy day!” But you’ll still look a whole lot smarter without them.

Commas, commas, commas:

As we said, commas are common; there might be a gazillion uses for this little character, so we won’t review them all. And, usage differs a bit between US and UK English, so it helps to know your audience. But here are some basic rules to always get right.

• Use commas to separate three or more simple items in a list: I love spiders, hot air balloons, and classic car shows. NOTE: A comma before the last and is generally not used in UK English.
• Use a comma to separate two sentences that are stuck together with a joining word (and, but, or, so, yet, for): I fought the law, but the law won.
• Use a comma for introductory clauses and phrases that would be confusing without it: For the teacher, hitting children was unacceptable.
• Finally, when in doubt, insert a comma where you would naturally pause while speaking.

What have we learned?

Using commas, semi-colons and quotation marks, you should have no difficulty punctuating one of the trickiest sentences in the English language:

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.

If you think you’ve got the answer, pass it along! And as always, if you’ve got a grammar or English language question, we never get tired of answering them.