Punctuation is the use of
certain established marks (punctuation marks) or symbols within a piece of written text. Punctuation prevents a piece of text from being just a string of
words by breaking up the string of words into meaningful units and by making
the text more fluent. Basically, punctuation marks can be seen as symbols which
are used to separate and join units of language into a cohesive text.
Modern writers
tend to punctuate much more lightly than their older counterparts did. This
goes hand in hand with the modern tendency to use less formal language and a
plainer style. However, the importance of punctuation, even in these less
formal modern times, should not be underestimated. Appropriate punctuation
creates order in what might otherwise be a piece of linguistic confusion.
The important
punctuation marks are the full stop,
question mark, exclamation mark, comma, brackets, dash, semicolon, colon, hyphen, quotation marks, apostrophe, asterisk, three-dot
ellipsis and the oblique.
The full stop, also called period,
is a punctuation mark consisting of a small dot (.). It is one of the most
important punctuation marks and the most emphatic, because its main function is
to mark the end of a sentence and so separate one sentence from another. Only
sentences that are either questions
or exclamations (see Questions and Exclamations) do not end in a full stop. Instead, they end respectively in a question mark or an exclamation
mark. The following are examples of sentences ending in a full stop: The children behaved very well.
They are getting married next
week.
We are moving house soon.
The car broke down.
You can
choose the restaurant.
I went by bus.
NB: The
stop
The full stop is also used to mark the end
of a group of words which is not actually a sentence, but which is complete in
itself, as in the following underlined words.
‘When do
we leave?’
‘Tomorrow
morning.’
The full stop and abbreviations
The full stop has another function. It is used with certain types of abbreviation, although the modern
tendency, particularly in British English, is to use full stops with
abbreviations far less than was formerly the case. For example, abbreviations
involving initial capital letters are generally written without full stops,
especially in British English, as TUC,
BBC, USA. In such cases full stops should definitely not be used if one or
some of the initial letters do not belong to a full word, as TV. TV is the abbreviation for
television and the letter V is simply
the initial letter of the second syllable of the word, not that of a new word.
There are usually no full stops in abbreviations involving
the first and last letters of a word (contractions),
as Dr, Rd, St, but whether they are
used or not can be a matter of taste. The important thing is to be consistent
in whether you use full stops or not in such
cases.Abbreviations involving the first few letters of a word are the most likely to have full stops, as in Feb. for February and Sept.
for September.
The full stop in email and website addresses
The full stop is also used in email
addresses such as sample.name@sampleaddress.co.uk
and in website addresses such
as www.sample-url.com
In these cases the inclusion
of the full stops and their correct placing are necessary to send the email
successfully or access the website.
The question
mark (?) is sometimes also known
as the query and it is used to mark
the end of a sentence which asks a question (see
1).
The following sentences are all questions ending in a question mark: Where are we?
Is that the right time?
Who is that?
Why did they leave so early?
Does he always behave so
badly?
Would you pass me the salt,
please?
Can I help you?
Whose coat is this?
NB:
Writing questions
It is not
recommended to use more than one question mark at the end of a sentence.
When
writing college essays or literary interpretations it may be tempting to
interperse your writing with questions, as in: ‘So what do we learn from
Wordsworth’s view of nature?’
This is too
informal for a such a composition. It is better to write: ‘What we learn from
Wordsworth’s view of nature is ...’
The exclamation
mark (!) is used to mark the end
of an exclamation or sometimes a directive (see 1)). The following sentences are all exclamations
or directives ending in an exclamation
mark: Run! Save me!
What a beautiful day!
How marvellous!
Well done!
You must be joking!
Ouch!
Let me go!
NB: Watch
out!
Be careful not to
overuse the exclamation mark. It is
easy to do so, particularly in a piece of informal English. One is enough at
the close of a sentence. Overuse of such sentences within a piece of writing
can detract from the potential dramatic effect of the occasional use of the
mark.
It
is common for people to overuse exclamation marks in emails, because the
communication is often informal and because we are often trying to convey
points of view and emotions that we would not normally be doing in a formal
piece of writing.
Capital letters are not technically speaking punctuation marks, but their use is so closely associated with the use of
the full stop, and with the question mark and exclamation mark that it makes sense to treat their use here. Just
as a sentence ends with a full stop
or, occasionally, with a question mark
or exclamation mark, so it always
begins with a capital letter. The
opposite of a capital letter is a lower-case letter. Capital letters are used in a number of situations:
A capital letter is used as the initial letter of the first word of a sentence or a direct quotation, as in They left early. and He said weakly, ‘I don’t feel very well.’
A capital letter is always used as the initial letter of a name or
proper noun, as in Mary Brown, South America, Rome, speak Italian, Buddhism
and Marxism.
A capital letter is also used as the initial letter of the main words
in the titles of people, places or works of art, as in the following:
Uncle Fred, Professor Jones, Ely Cathedral, Edinburgh University, Glasgow Caledonian University,
reading Wuthering Heights, watching a
production of Guys and Dolls, listen
to Beethoven’s Third Symphony and buy
a copy of ‘The Potato Eaters’ by van
Gogh.
They are also
used in the titles of wars and historical, cultural and geological periods, as
in the Wars of the Roses, the Renaissance
and the Ice Age. Only the major words
of titles, etc, begin with capital letters. Words, such as the, on, of, etc, are in lower-case letters, as The Mill on the Floss.
A capital letter is used as the initial letter of the days of the
week, months of the year, and religious festivals, as Monday, October, Easter, Yom Kippur. It is a matter of choice
whether the seasons of the year are given capital letters or not, as in
spring/Spring, autumn/ Autumn.
A capital letter is used as the initial letter of God, Allah or Jesus
Christ, or similar words. When a pronoun is used to refer to God or Christ the
pronoun
begins with an initial capital letter, as God asks us to trust in Him.
A capital letter is always used as the initial letter of a noun that
is a trade name as in Peugeot, Xerox, Hoover.
When verbs are
formed from such nouns, they are usually spelt with an initial lower-case letter (see below), as in xerox
the letter and hoover
the carpet.
The opposite of a capital letter is a lower-case letter, also known
informally as small letter. Lower-case letters are used for most
words in the language. It is capital
letters that are exceptional in their use.
1 Rewrite
the following passages, inserting the appropriate punctuation mark at the end of each sentence.
a
Ouch I slipped on the ice and hurt my ankle I can hardly walk Do you
think my ankle could be broken
Perhaps I’d better get a doctor to have a look at it Could you possibly
take me to the hospital in your car if you’ve time It shouldn’t take very long,
should it It’s not far If you’re in a hurry you can just drop me outside the hospital
and leave I’ll phone my parents from the hospital and they’ll come and get me
b
Is that the right time It’s much later than I thought and we simply
mustn’t miss the nine o’clock train It’s the last one tonight Isn’t that it
standing at the platform Come on Run We may just catch it if we’re lucky We
made it just in time Thank goodness We’d better phone home to say we’re on our
way or Mum will be worried You know what she’s like
c
I don’t know many people at this party That man over there looks familiar,
though Do you know who he is I seem to recognize the woman he’s with as well
Who can she be Where’s our host I’ll just go and ask him who they are I don’t
see them anymore Have they gone How annoying Never mind I probably didn’t know
them anyway They probably just looked like some other people I know
2 Rewrite
the following passages replacing a
lower-case letter with a capital
letter where you think this is appropriate.
a
it’s saturday today and we’re going shopping. christmas is only two
weeks away and we’ve still got a lot of gifts to buy, although we bought quite
a few in november. we want to find something special for my sister anne. she’s
been working in south africa and we haven’t seen her since easter last year.
anne’s arriving at heathrow next tuesday and my brother john and I are going to
the airport to meet her. we live in london and so we don’t have far to go,
although we’ll probably get caught up in traffic jams.
b
They all teach english at american universities and they’ve come to
britain to attend a conference in oxford. after the conference ends they’re
planning to go on a brief tour of britain. They’ll start with stratford and
they have tickets for performances of shakespeare’s king lear and twelfth night. Then
they’re going to london and plan to go on a river cruise on the thames before
going to the tower of london and windsor castle. after that they’re going to go
to canterbury and then to ely to visit the cathedrals there before travelling
up to scotland to attend some of the events at the edinburgh festival in
august. they hope to have time to go to the various art exhibitions,
particularly the one featuring the impressionists.
1
a
Ouch! I slipped on the ice and hurt my ankle. I can hardly walk. Do you
think my ankle could be broken? Perhaps I’d better get a doctor to have a look
at it. Could you possibly take me to the hospital in your car if you’ve time?
It shouldn’t take very long, should it? It’s not far. If you’re in a hurry you
can just drop me outside the hospital and leave. I’ll phone my parents from the
hospital and they’ll come and get me.
Is that the right time? It’s much later than I thought and we simply
mustn’t miss the nine o’clock train.
It’s the last one tonight. Isn’t that it standing at the platform? Come
on! Run! We may just catch it if we’re lucky. We made it just in time. Thank
goodness! We’d better phone home to say we’re on our way or Mum will be
worried. You know what she’s like.
c
I don’t know many people at this party. That man over there looks
familiar, though. Do you know who he is? I seem to recognize the woman he’s
with as well. Who can she be? Where’s our host? I’ll just go and ask him who
they are. I don’t see them anymore. Have they gone? How annoying! Never mind! I
probably didn’t know them anyway. They probably just looked like some other
people I know.
2
a
It’s Saturday today and we’re going shopping. Christmas is only two
weeks away and we’ve still got a lot of gifts to buy, although we bought quite
a few in November. We want to find something special for my sister Anne. She’s
been working in South Africa and we haven’t seen her since Easter last year.
Anne’s arriving at Heathrow next Tuesday and my brother John and I are going to
the airport to meet her. We live in London and so we don’t have far to go,
although we’ll probably get caught up in traffic jams.
b
They all teach English at American universities and they’ve come to
Britain to attend a conference in Oxford. After the conference ends they’re
planning to go on a brief tour of Britain. They’ll start with Stratford and
they have tickets for performances of Shakespeare’s King Lear and Twelfth Night. Then
they’re going to London and plan to go on a river cruise on the Thames before
going to
the Tower of London and Windsor Castle. After that they’re going to go
to Canterbury and then to Ely to visit the cathedrals there before travelling
up to Scotland to attend some of the events at the Edinburgh Festival in
August. They hope to have time to go to the various art exhibitions,
particularly the one featuring the Impressionists.
