Punctuation

From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change

Punctuation is the name for marks used in writing. These marks help with understanding. There are many kinds of punctuation. Some of them can do many things. Common punctuation marks in English are:

• . is a period, or full stop.
• , is a comma.
• ? is a query, or question mark.
• ! is an exclamation mark.
• ' is an apostrophe.
• " is a quotation mark.
• : is a colon.
• ; is a semicolon.
• ... is an ellipsis.
• - is a hyphen.

Contents 1 Rules of punctuation 2 Period 3 Comma 4 Question Mark 5 Exclamation mark 6 Apostrophe 6.1 Ownership 6.2 Contractions 6.3 Common mistakes when using apostrophes 7 Quotation Marks 8 Colons 9 Semicolon 10 Ellipsis 11 Hyphen 12 Bibliography

[change] Rules of punctuation

The use of punctuation in English can change from place to place and from time to time.

The use of these marks is often decided by a group or organization and then written down as a Style guide. A newspaper may have a style guide to make their stories use the same rules (called consistency).

Some people become angry about what they call "bad" punctuation. The rules are really up to the writer to decide, as long as the meaning is clear. However, if the rules are not followed, a writer's work may seem to be poorly written.

[change] Period

A period looks like this : .

A period is used to end a sentence. It shows when an idea is finished.

A period can show numbers that are smaller than 1. With money, a period is used to show the amount of money less than one dollar.

For example: "Elizabeth bought a soda for $1.25" means that Elizabeth paid one dollar and twenty-five cents for a drink.

A period is used to show that a word has been made smaller. A word that is made smaller with a period is called an abbreviation.

For example: The words "doctor, mister, or mistress" can be made smaller when used with a name. "Dr. Smith" is the name of a doctor whose last name is Smith, or Mr. Smith, or Mrs. Smith. ("Mrs." is spoken as "missus").

[change] Comma

A comma looks like this: ,

A comma has many uses. Some are:

• to list things - birds, cats, insects, pigs, and sheep.
• to separate two sentences with a conjunction - "Most birds have separate toes, but the duck's feet are webbed."
• to separate parts of a sentence - "Hallie ate melons, Mimi ate apples and Elizabeth ate berries."
• to indicate a pause in a sentence or question - "Hallie, did you remember to feed the cat?"

A list can have a comma before the "and". If the comma is there it is called an Oxford Comma.

[change] Question Mark

Main article: Question mark

A question mark looks like this : ?

Question marks are used when writing a question, to make an inquiry, or to ask something.

For example:

"Hallie, did you remember to feed the cat?"

Elizabeth said "How are you?" to Hallie.

"How are you today?"

[change] Exclamation mark

An exclamation mark looks like this : !

An exclamation mark is used write about a strong emotion, or to write the words a person shouted. It can be used to make a statement stronger or more forceful.

For example:

"What a bad cat Mimi has!"

"Hallie, come here!"

"You did a good job!"

An exclamation mark can be used with a question mark, to make a question more forceful.

For example:

"What did you do that for?!" she said angrily.

[change] Apostrophe

Main article: Apostrophe

An apostrophe looks like this : '

An apostrophe has two main uses.

[change] Ownership

An apostrophe can be used to show that something belongs to something else.

If there is only one thing, the letter "s" is used after an apostrophe to show ownership.

For example:

"It was the boy's dog."

"We will go in Mimi's car."

Sometimes the letter "s" is not used after an apostrophe to show ownership. A word will end with just an apostrophe if there is more than one thing and the word already ends with an "s".

For example: "The father put away the girls' clothes" means that a father has to clean for several children. "The father put away the girl's clothes" means that a father has to clean for only one child.

[change] Contractions

An apostrophe can be used to put two small words together. Two small words that are put together with an apostrophe to make one word are called contractions. This is normal in writing about a person speaking. Spoken English often uses contractions because these words sound better.

For example:

"Can not" can be made into the word "can't".

"It is" can be made into the word "it's". For example: "It's a nice day today."

[change] Common mistakes when using apostrophes

Pronouns do not use an apostrophe to show that something belongs to something else. Among these are its, his, hers, theirs.

For example:

"The bird flapped its wings" not "The bird flapped it's wings"

It is his bike not It is his's bike

Plurals (more than one thing) do not need an apostrophe. "The apples are on sale" not "The apple's are on sale"

[change] Quotation Marks

Quotation marks (also called quote marks or quotes for short) are used around the words that people have said, or direct speech. They are used in pairs.

For example:

Hallie said, "Mimi, please wash the dishes."

Quotation marks are never supposed to go just before commas and periods in these cases, but only after.

Quotation marks are also used in some other cases besides direct speech, for example around the name of a story or song, etc. In these cases, the commas can come after the quote marks.

Example:

After recording "Beat It", Michael Jackson went on to record several more hits.

[change] Colons

Main article: Colon (punctuation)

This is a colon :

Colons can be used at the beginning of a list. "This is a list of animals : birds, cats, insects, pigs, and sheep.".

Colons can be used to replace a semicolon in between two parts of a sentence, but this is not common today.

Some people say that a colon must be separated from the words around it with one space before and two spaces after. Some people use no space before and one space after. The rule, like all punctuation, is up to the writer to decide.

For example: this is an item with a colon with only one space after the mark.

For example : this is an item with a colon with one space before and one space after the mark

[change] Semicolon

A semicolon looks like this : ;

A semicolon is used to connect two sentences, in one sentence, where a comma could also be used.

For example:

I could tell that it was getting late; it was growing darker by the second.

I could tell that it was getting late because it was growing darker by the second.

[change] Ellipsis

An ellipsis is a mark that looks like this : ...

It is used to show where words have been missed out when writing what a person said. It can also be used to show that there is more to be said but the person stopped at that point.

For example :

• • "...one day all Americans will live peacefully throughout the world...they will be at peace with all other world inhabitants..."
  • So much more could be said...

[change] Hyphen

Hyphens have many uses in writing. A hyphen looks like this: - Some examples are shown here:

• Some words can have a hyphen added to change the meaning. For example, re-form means "start again" but reform means "change". A re-formed group is different from a reformed group.
• A hyphen is used to spell out some numbers (thirty-two, forty-nine, eighty-six).
• When a name for a material such as "stainless steel" is used with a word for a thing made of that material, a hyphen is used, as in "stainless-steel knife".
• Some words have letters at the beginning, or prefixes, these can sometimes use hyphens: un-American, anti-pollution, non-proliferation
• When spelling out a word: H-Y-P-H-E-N
• In some cases, when putting two words together would be hard to understand. For example, if something is like a shell, writing it as "shelllike" is hard to read with so many uses of the letter 'l'. It is better to use "shell-like."
• When writing words that someone has spoken when that person has difficulty speaking, as in: "I reached for the w-w-w-watering can." This is called a stammer or speech disorder.
• When adding words that already have a hyphen. For example: two to year-old as in: "He was a two- or three-year-old dog."
• If a word for a person (a name or proper noun) is used with another name, a hyphen is used such as "the Merriam-Webster dictionary" or "the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact."
• Some people take a name from the family names of both parents, or from the last name of their father and husband. For example: "John Rees-Williams". This is not always the case, for example: "Hillary Rodham Clinton".
• A hyphen is also used when a word is too long too fit in one row of writing. This is only done in newspapers books and magazines to save space and paper. Normal people do not write like this very much. A long word is broken into two parts, of nearly the same length, with a hyphen at the end of the first part. The normal way is to make the first part of the word as much like a complete word as possible. For example:

Good: What was done was not good, not help- ful, nor was it very useful.

Not so good: What was done was not good, not hel- pful, nor was it very useful.

[change] Bibliography

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves By Lynne Truss. Published By Profile Books, Ltd. in 2003