With the dawn of the Internet, the birth of Internet slang, and the growing age of SMS, many individuals are forgetting the fundamental aspects of English punctuation.  (1)

Whenever I pick up a magazine, newspaper, or (especially) an advertisement lately, I could just die grammatically.

What is it with the common use ( or lack thereof) of punctuation? We see movies titles such as “Two Weeks Notice”, store signs that yell for a red pen’s corrections (“Buy One, Get One, FREE”), and newspaper articles that smack us with “…there were several month’s worth of records found…”  We stumble upon captions where it looks like there are potentially missing persons involved:  “In this photo, from left, are Henry Goshow, his wife and a co-worker, Kelly Delikat, holding daughter, Paige, and Rod Goshow.” 

What is to be done? Should we editors and grammarians just stand aside and say, “Well it’s too bad, but there’s nothing we can do about it..”?    No!

The issue  needs to be addressed and the public should educate themselves in the proper use of punctuation. I shall attempt to present the history and general correct uses of punctuation here, but all concerned English-speaking persons ought to be eloquently and feelingly doing the same!

What is punctuation?

This is a good place to start. Before we even address the problem, we might as well get some background. Here is a history I found sufficient for our needs. It summarizes the history and development of punctuation neatly & succinctly:

“Punctuation in English Since 1600”

The Punctuation Marks

‘In English, the “full stop” or “period” (.) marks the end of a sentence. The “colon” (:) is at the transition point of the sentence. The “semicolon” (;) separates different clauses, or statements. The “comma” (,) separates clauses, phrases, and particles.

The “dash” (–) marks abruptness or irregularity. The “exclamation” (!) marks surprise. The “interrogation” or “query” (?) asks a question. The apostrophe (‘) marks elisions or the possessive case. “Quotes,” quotation marks, or “inverted commas” (” “) define either quoted words or words used with special emphasis or significance. Interpolations in a sentence are marked by various forms of bracket [] or parenthesis. Usage and practice vary widely, however…”

“The system of punctuation now used by writers of English has been complete since the 17th century. Three of its most important components are the space left blank between words; the indentation of the first line of a new paragraph; and the uppercase, or capital, letter written at the beginning of a sentence and at the beginning of a proper name or a title. The marks of punctuation, also known as points or stops, and the chief parts that they play in the system are as follows.

The end of a grammatically complete sentence is marked by a full point, full stop, or period. The period may also be used to mark abbreviations. The colon (:), which was once used like a full point and was followed by an uppercase letter, now serves mainly to indicate the beginning of a list, summary, or quotation. The semicolon (;) ranks halfway between a comma and a full point. It may be substituted for a period between two grammatically complete sentences that are closely connected in sense; in a long or complicated sentence, it may precede a coordinate conjunction (such as “or,” “and,” or “but”). A most usual means of indicating the syntactical turning points in a sentence, it is exposed to abuse. It may be used to separate the elements of a series, before a relative clause that does not limit or define its antecedent, in pairs to set off or isolate words or phrases, or in combination with coordinating conjunctions.

Other punctuation marks used in modern English include parentheses, which serve, like a pair of commas, to isolate a word or phrase; question, exclamation, and quotation marks; the hyphen; and the apostrophe.”(2)

Using Correct Modern Punctuation

Now we must fully realize that our language is constantly morphing & changing. The very rules we stick to today could be well nigh considered outdated tomorrow! (Well maybe it’s not quite that bad…) But anyway, it is true that your English teacher may have  led you astray into thinking that the grammar, punctuation and literature rules (she is teaching you, of course) are as fixed and immutable as the laws of the universe. Wrong-o. They don’t change as fast as the New York Times ‘Best Sellers’ list, true. But you will not be denounced from the educational world for putting your comma once in a unneeded place.

As for me, I never had a English teacher like that. However, the one I did have seemed to brilliant in making the study of English seem VERY boring, remote, and complicated. Thus, she  unknowingly compounding my classmates’ and my  own’s already held view  that maybe we ought to just leave the grammar and punctuation rules to geeks and people like her that actually had the time & head to bother about it. Wrong-o again.

Now, I love English. If the above was my opinion in the lonely white halls of high school, what changed between then and now? Precisely this:

1. I discovered (surprise!) that not having a good working knowledge of grammar (and thus, of punctuation) makes you look stupid & illiterate. No surprise really; but it just happened to hit me one day.
2. After that I thought, “Maybe punctuation is important after all…” I wondered how I could go about focusing on it more.

At this step, I stumbled across books like Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss*. This Englishwoman has my hearty & full support! She makes a wonderful treatise and presents a humorous expounding of punctuation. Coming to it, I thought the book  might be a little entertaining–but it is far more than that. It must be the #1 book on punctuation out there(for those of us who aren’t college professors) .

And lastly, step three:

3.  Upon reading just a little bit about punctuation, I found myself suddenly noticing every little instance of the incorrect use of it! I was almost overnight that I changed into a punctuation-fanatic.

So now, here I am: a full-time, amateur editor. And believe me, I find plenty of opportunity for use of my newly-found abilities!

* http://lynnetruss.com/

(1) http://www.wikihow.com/Use-English-Punctuation-Correctly

(2) Copyright © 1994-1998 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

# 2 In Titmoss’s Grammar Series

This is a post about those tiny little abbreviations that you stumble along in your reading and that, in all probability, you have no idea what they stand for (or at least not with a certainty!)

Let me enlighten you; but first I must admit I myself did not know the exact meaning of many of these either!  Perhaps the reason they might be more unknown is because, first of all, many of them are either abbreviations of words from another language( like Latin) or the are words taken directly from another language. But, as these are pretty important to understanding everyday writing, let’s plow through them and be happy knowing that when we come out the other side, our reading will be so much clearer.

a.k.a. – denotes the abbreviation of the phrase “also known as”, or similar sayings (though not mirrored in the abbrev.) such as: alias, also called, otherwise known as, etc.

e.g.— from Latin: exempli gratia, meaning “for example”. When you read this aloud you can say “e-g”, or “for example”. (In the first post of this series, there was an example of this abbreviations use. See if you can find it!)

i.e.— This word comes from two Latin words[ id est] meaning “that is”. Other closely used meanings of this abbreviation. Include: that is, specifically, explicitly, to be exact, to be precise. When you read this word you can say “that is” or, verbalize the name of the letters “i-e.”

viz— An abbreviation of the word videlicet; which means “that is to say”, or “namely…”. It comes from Middle English (ME) and Latin (L) as a combination of vidēre “to see” and licet “it is permitted”. When you read this aloud you can say “namely…”, “viz”, or “videlicet.”

sic.—From Latin meaning, “so, thus”. [Sic] means, “intentionally so written” — and is used after a printed word or passage to indicate that it is “intended exactly as printed” or to indicate that it exactly reproduces an original.  Often put in brackets: [sic].(Many people think of this as a writer’s way of saying, “I didn’t spell that wrong; the author of the text did!” So that we know he wasn’t the illiterate one. J)

etc.–  Also etcetera. From Latin [ et cetera] meaning “…and others of the same kind”, “…and so forth.” I have noticed many people pronounce this word  “EX-cetera”. That is incorrect. It is said “ET-cetera.”

footnote¹– A number found in a sentence of your reading means that the author has notes to add that are most likely found, either 1) at the bottom or side of the page, or 2) in the back of the book.

As Always,

Your Peleographer,

Titmoss