Punctuation of English

Punctuation in the English language helps the reader to understand a sentence through visual means other than the letters of the alphabet: ‘the rules for graphically structuring written language by means of a set of conventional marks’. English punctuation has always had two complementary sides: on the one hand there is phonological punctuation linked to how the sentence can be read aloud, particularly to pausing, on the other grammatical punctuation linked to the structure of the sentence. In popular discussion of language, incorrect punctuation is often seen as an indication of lack of education and of the decline of standards.

National variants

There are two major styles of punctuation in English: American and British, the latter of which is also called "logical quotation" where it pertains to quotation marks. These two styles differ in the way in which they handle quotation marks with adjacent punctuation.

Usage of different punctuation marks or symbols

Frequency

Approximate average frequencies for English punctuation marks per 1000 words based on 723,000 words of assorted texts are as follows:

(.) period/full stop 65.3

(,) comma 61.6

(;) semi-colon 3.2

(:) colon 3.4

(!) exclamation 3.3

(') apostrophe /single quotation mark 24.3

(“) double quotation mark 26.7

(-) hyphen 15.3

TOTAL 208.7

Apostrophe

Main article: Apostrophe § English_language_usage

The apostrophe ( ’ ' ) is used to mark possession as in "John's book", and to mark letters omitted in contractions, such as you're for you are.

Brackets

Brackets ( [ ], ( ), { }, ⟨ ⟩ ) are used for parenthesis, explanation or comment: such as "John Smith (the elder, not his son)..."

Colon and semicolon

Main article: Colon (punctuation)

The colon ( : ) is used to explain or start an enumeration. The semicolon ( ; ) is often used to break up listings with commas: "She saw three men: Jamie, who came from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man."

Comma

The comma ( , ) is used to disambiguate the meaning of sentences, by providing boundaries between clauses and phrases. For example, "Man, without his cell phone, is nothing" (emphasizing the importance of cell phone) and "Man: without, his cell phone is nothing" (emphasizing the importance of men) have greatly different meanings, as do "eats shoots and leaves" (to mean "consumes plant growths") and "eats, shoots and leaves" (to mean "eats firstly, fires a weapon secondly, and leaves the scene thirdly"). The comma is also used to separate numbers. For example, “January 7, 1985” and “2,000”.

Dash and hyphen

The dash ( ‒, –, —, ― ) hyphen ( ‐ ) and hyphen-minus ( - )

Ellipsis

Main article: Ellipsis § In_English

An ellipsis ( …, ..., . . . ) is used to mark omitted text.

Exclamation mark

The exclamation mark ( ! ) is used to mark an exclamation.

Full stop (British), or Period (American)

The full stop or period ( . ) is firstly used to mark the end of a sentence. It is also used to mark abbreviation of names as initials.

Dwight D. Eisenhower's home in Gettysburg, Pa., was not very far from Washington, D.C.

Guillemets

Guillemets ( « » ), sometimes called French quotation marks, are relatively uncommon in English, but are sometimes used as a form of quotation mark.

Question marks

The question mark ( ? ) is used to mark the end of a sentence which is a question.

Quotation marks

Quotation marks ( ‘ ’, “ ”, ' ', " " ) are used to mark quotation. In all forms of English, question marks and exclamation points are placed either inside or outside the quotation marks depending on whether they apply to the whole sentence or only to the quoted material. In British English, periods and commas are almost always treated the same way. In American English, periods and commas are almost always placed inside the quotation marks regardless. According to the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed. "The British style is strongly advocated by some American language experts. In defense of nearly a century and a half of the American style, however, it may be said that it seems to have been working fairly well and has not resulted in serious miscommunication. Whereas there clearly is some risk with question marks and exclamation points, there seems little likelihood that readers will be misled concerning the period or comma." It goes on to recommend British practice for fields such as linguistics and literary criticism. British and American practices also differ in the American English tends to favor double quotation marks for primary quotation, switching to single for any quote-within-a-quote, and British English may use either single or double for primary quotation.

Slash

The slash or stroke or solidus ( /, ⁄ ) is often used to indicate alternatives, such as "his/her", or two equivalent meanings or spellings, such as ""grey/gray".

Further reading

Well thought-of modern descriptions are:

Trask, R.L. (1997), The Penguin Guide to Punctuation. London: Penguin

Todd, L. (1995), The Cassell Guide to Punctuation. London: Cassell

A very successful polemic on punctuation is:

Truss, L. (2003), Eats Shoots and Leaves. London: Profile

The classic historical treatment is:

Parkes, M.B. (1992), Pause and Effect: Punctuation in the West. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing

A short overall view is in:

Cook, V.J. (2004), The English Writing System. London: Arnold