Summary of Punctuation Marks

Mark Name

Example I like English. I speak English, French and Thai. I don't often go swimming; I prefer to play tennis. You have two choices: finish the work today or lose the contract. This is a rather out-of-date book. In each townLondon, Paris and Romewe stayed in youth hostels. Where is Shangri-La? "Help!" she cried. "I'm drowning!" Please press your browser's Refresh/Reload button. "I love you," she said. This is John's car. I went to Bagkok (my favourite city) and stayed there for two weeks. The newspaper reported that the hostages [most of them French] had been released.

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full stop/period comma semi-colon colon hyphen dash question mark exclamation mark oblique/slash quotation marks apostrophe round brackets square brackets braces ellipsis
Capital Letter

One happy customer wrote: "This is the best program...that I have ever seen."
In English it's customary to say "How do you do?" when somebody for the first time.

A capital is used for the first letter of a new sentence, of quoted speech or proper nouns. Exception: The first letter of a sentence does not need to be

We drove almost 1000 kilometers (in the U.S. they'd call i

capitalized if it is included in parenthesis within another sentence.

miles) before we finally found a place for the night.

In more formal or academic writing a capital can only be used for the There was only one thing he knew for sure: first letter of a clause introduced by a colon if this clause constitutes He did not want to be sent back to North Korea. (Here cap a complete sentence. is acceptable but not compulsory.)

There was only one thing he was afraid of: being sent bac In casual, everyday writing, however, this rule does not appear to be Korea. (In this case a capital letter should not be used.) so strictly adhered to, and so widespread confusion prevails. A capital is used for the first letter of names of months and days of the week, but not of seasons. Holidays should also be capitalized.

After a long, hot summer she married him on a sultry Satu September. January 1 is New Year's Day.

A capital letter is always used for the first person singular subjective My boss and I agreed that I should make up for the time I personal pronoun I. This capitalized form first appeared around 1250 in northern and central England in order to facilitate the correct The letter i is a vowel. reading of handwritten documents. Only after 1700 did it become universally accepted in the south of the country. MORE> Your own relatives should be given an initial capital letter when their How's Dad keeping these days? titles are used instead of names. Compare: My dad bought me a bicycle. A capital is used for the first letter of key words in headings and titles. If such titles are hyphenated then both components are given capitalized first letters. The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries The Centers for Disease Control Vice-President Dick Cheney

Unless placed first in a heading or title, non-key words, such as "Gone with the Wind" articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions and infinitive to , do "The Lord of the Rings" not need to have their initial letter capitalized. In order to steer clear of this particular hassle, American English often prefers to capitalize all first letters in titles, most notably in newspaper headlines.

BrE: "Miners Refuse to Work after Death" AmE: "Miners Refuse To Work After Death"

A capital is used for the first letter of key words in historical events. The Battle of Waterloo The Great Fire of London A capital is used for the first letter of religions and many other religious words. If in doubt, consult a good dictionary! Devout Christians do daily Bible study. Devout Catholics attend regular Mass.

Full Stop (period) The world is round. An overhead projector is often referred to as an O.H.P.

Full stops (or periods) are used to mark the end of a sentence which is a statement. They are also used to mark abbreviations. If such an abbreviation occurs at the very end of a sentence, the final dot is not usually written twice. Nowadays it is increasingly common to omit full stops in most abbreviations, especially in the names of companies, authorities, organizations, etc. In British English, full stops are also omitted in abbreviations for countries and political entities.

"Big Blue" is a well known nickname for IBM.

The FDA regulates pharmaceutical sales in the United Sta

The UK is a member of the EU. Switzerland is not, but ha in a referendum to join the UN.

American English more often retains the full stops in country AmE: Dr. Cohen is from the U.S. Since 1999 he has been abbreviations, however, and seems especially unwilling to drop them for UNICEF at U.N. headquarters in New York. He weigh in U.S. Perhaps this is a matter of national pride or an effort to avoid

confusion with the objective personal pronoun US.

(lb.) / lbs (lbs.) and walks 2 miles to work every day.

In contrast to American English, British English does not need a full stop after abbreviations that include the final letter of the abbreviated BrE: Mr Jackson was born in the UK in 1947 but later be word, such as citizen. Nowadays he's working for UNESCO at UN head Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde, or Mrs Jones. New York. He weighs 75 kg and walks 3 km to work ever It is rare for either British or American English to use full stops for abbreviations treated as a single word (i.e. acronyms) like AIDS or NATO. Abbreviations of metric measurements and chemical symbols are written without full stops, e.g. 3 km, 6 kg, H for hydrogen and Pb for lead. Even for abbreviations of non-metric measurements the use of full stops is becoming increasingly rare.

...

Ellipsis

An ellipsis is used to indicate missing words in an incomplete quotation.

"Popular heart remedy debunked...Treating the bloodstrea chelation therapy fails to relieve heart disease"

Semicolon

A semicolon loosely separates two sentences that are either closely related or serve to complement each other.

This was the second time he had been in Toronto; the plac faces all seemed strangely familiar.

Secondly, it is used to indicate stronger divisions in longer sentences He wanted to talk to Maria, whom he'd admired for a long already broken up by commas. was delighted to see her running toward him; but alas, bef could greet her, she thumbed down a taxi and was swiftly away.

Thirdly, it is used to show the main divisions in lists of longer items. The following issues were raised at last night's PTA meeti the kids get up to in the lunch break; what is to be done ab smoking in the playground; how we should solve the prob graffiti in the restrooms; and lastly, the vexing question of school lunches.

Comma

The comma provides a key indication of when to pause when reading a text in order to clarify meaning and avoid ambiguity. It is often used with a co-ordinating conjunction to separate two main clauses. In the case of very short sentences, where a pause might seem unnatural, the comma may be omitted.

Tom goes jogging at six in the morning, but he doesn't usu more than two blocks. The cloud burst and he got soaked. She wanted to help him(,) but she didn't know how.

Introductory elements are conveniently separated off with a comma. Not knowing what to do, he jumped from a ninth floor wi In the case of very short introductions, where a pause would interrupt the flow of natural speech, this comma may be omitted. Immediately he regretted his decision. A comma separates off multiple adjectives before a noun, but not in cases when the final adjective forms a compound with the noun itself.

Giovanni was a tall, dark, handsome, Italian social worker It was a dirty, dastardly, despicable thing to do.

If you can insert and or but between the adjectives, then you can also They enjoyed an excellent French wine. insert a comma. It is used to separate a non-defining relative clause from its antecedent.

My cousin Sheila, who was recently awarded an MBA, ha landed a job on Wall Street.

It is also used to separate items in a list, especially shorter ones.

The following issues were raised at last night's PTA meeti breaks, playground smoking, restroom graffiti and unpaid lunches.

Before the final item in a list a comma is not usually necessary before and, unless this helps to clarify the meaning.

The bedding materials were available in a variety of color yellow, green, orange, black and white.

The bedding materials were available in a variety of color yellow, green, orange, and black and white. In more formal or academic writing, where even the opportunity for ambiguity is to be avoided, the systematic insertion of a serial comma after the penultimate item in a listing is taken very seriously by U.S. academia. Nevertheless, it is not incorrect to leave out the comma before the final and as long as you are sure no ambiguity arises. Most newspaper editors adopt this less pedantic approach. In larger numbers commas are used to mark off and thus facilitate easy reading of hundreds, thousands, millions, billions and trillions.

This research is based upon interviews with high-ranking officials in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Cam Laos, and Vietnam.

This research is based upon interviews with high-ranking officials in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Cam Laos and Vietnam.

The soft-wear tycoon Jill Bates is said to make $20,000,00 night while she's sleeping.

Colon

The colon is used to separate two main clauses where the first is an introduction to the second. If the second sentence is a quotation, using a colon instead of a comma makes this more emphatic. The colon also introduces a list of items separated by commas or semicolons.

Halfway across the Atlantic, the pilot had an awful realiza had forgotten to turn off the gas at breakfast time.

I gave it to him straight: "Don't under any circumstances e near me again!"

The new teacher could speak several foreign languages: C Arabic, Spanish and French.

Question Mark "You work in Atlanta?" "Yeah, that's right. And you?"

A question mark is used instead of a full stop (period) to mark the end of a sentence which is a question. It can also be found (often in brackets) expressing doubt or uncertainty about the word or phrase it is placed immediately after.

"Robinson Crusoe" was written by Daniel Defoe (1660[?]

Exclamation Mark "Help!" "All hands on deck!" "Watch out!" "Oh, my goodness!" "That's brilliant!" "I loathe your guts!" "Ouch!" "How revolting!"

An exclamation mark is used instead of a full stop (or period) after a word, phrase or sentence that is a strong appeal, a command, a warning or an expression of surprise, enthusiasm, emotion, pain or disgust in the form of an exclamation or interjection. Note: There is a tendency to overuse exclamation marks. It should not be necessary to add them to every single remark or witticism in order to attract a reader's attention. Good quality writing will get read anyway.

Apostrophe The boy's father. The girls' mothers. The children's clothes.

The primary use of the apostrophe is to indicate possession. It is positioned before possessive 's' in singulars, and after it in plurals (except in the case of men, women and children).

When a name already ends in 's', the addition of a possessive 's' after Charles Dickens' novel "A Tale of Two Cities" was first p the apostrophe is sometimes deemed unnecessary. 1859. A disturbing trend in modern English is for the apostrophe to be dropped altogether, thereby clouding the all-important distinction between the possessive and plural forms of the noun.

Many people think credit cards are more convenient than checks. (Nowadays it's not uncommon to see travelers che no apostrophe, and this is a catastrophe!)

The other major use of the apostrophe is to replace missing letters in He's never said he wouldn't like to cross into Canada whi contractions. the States, but it's hardly likely he'll have time. It's on its way. It is never to be used in the possessive adjective its. Nor should it be In the 1970s she was still in her 30s. used in contractions of decades, age-groups, etc.

Quotation Marks

These are used to highlight direct speech, quotations and titles. Double quotation marks are widely used for the main quote, single ones for quotes or titles inside quotes or titles. However, especially in printed matter, the reverse arrangement is common.

"Come over here," he said with ill-concealed rage in his e you'd better make it snappy!"

"Did you know that the 'Mr. Bean' TV comedy became a success because it was all done with mime?"

'The only thing I ever regret saying to my husband is "I d

The final quotation marks should always come after any other Suddenly Sue turned to me and asked, "Did you ever man punctuation marks, unless you are ending with a title or quote within finish 'War and Peace'?" a quote.

Please note that American English likes to place the final punctuation AmE: He's always wanted to read "Moby Dick," "Oliver mark inside a title or quotation, even though it doesn't form part of "The Great Gatsby." it. The British regard this practice as illogical. BrE: He's always wanted to read "Moby Dick", "Oliver T "The Great Gatsby".

([ ])

Brackets

Brackets are convenient for parenthesizing comments, explanations So called 'spamming' (bombarding thousands of unsuspec or supplementary information without interrupting the flow of a computer-users with e-mails [electronic messages] for adv sentence. The first brackets are rounded, and brackets inside brackets purposes) is a major curse of the 21st century. are squared.

Dash

A dash is used to indicate a pause, either for hesitation or explanation.

"Don't you think you should have said something?" "She said her boss was getting on her nerves that's what she always said when she quit jobs!"

As an alternative to brackets or commas, a set of two dashes can be used to insert asides or other parenthetical information. Lastly, a dash can also be used to avoid writing the worst words when quoting bad language. It is left to the reader to figure out exactly what was said.

Most people would agree that if one disregards the typ earthquakes, gangsters and reckless drivers Japan is sti relatively safe country to live in. " off!" yelled the yob in an uncouth manner.

Hyphen

The dear old hyphen is found linking the elements of many compound nouns and adjectives. English allows a good deal of scope for personal preference in this area and so there are few hard and fast rules. Generally speaking, however, hyphens are very useful for linking compound elements that belong together syntactically. And sometimes they are indispensable! Although gradually becoming less common, especially for joining single-syllable elements, the hyphen well applied can allow one to make subtle distinctions that would otherwise be lost.

Hot-dog lovers usually like hamburgers. I saw many hot dog-lovers walking their pets on a summe Two radically different headlines: 'Police catch man-eating crocodile' 'Police catch man eating crocodile' I'm an English teacher. I'm an English English-teacher. I'm an English-English teacher.

Compare also a changing room with a changing-room. I case we have a room that is changing (which is clearly ab in the second case a much more logical compound noun. N consider a writing desk, a walking stick or even laughing same way. Sadly, there seems to be a growing reluctance fine distinction between sense and nonsense. Hyphens are also particularly useful for avoiding awkward collisions BrE: Democracy has recently become of similar sounds in words like re-established in Nigeria. co-operation. American English, however, prefers cooperation, in spite of this being trickier to read. Last but not least, the hyphen is used to mark the division of a word split between two lines. AmE: Democracy has recently become reestablished in Nigeria. Despite our efforts, we have so far failed to discover life on other planets.

Inversion is used to give emphasis or to be rhetorical in more formal situations, in political speeches, on the news, and also in literature. Some native speakers may also use them occasionally in day-to-day conversation. Look at these examples, and then try the exercises at the bottom of the page.

At no time
e.g. At no time did I say I would accept late homework.

Hardly........when
This is used to refer to an event that quickly follows another. It is usually used with the past perfect. e.g. Hardly had I got into bed, when there was a knock at the door. Less used is Hardly....before. e.g. Hardly had I left before the trouble started.

Little
e.g. Little did I know that he was a compulsive liar. Little does she know what surprises we have in store for her.

No sooner.....than

This is used to refer to an event that quickly follows another. It is usually used with the past perfect, but sometimes with the simple past. e.g. No sooner had I reached the door than I realised it was locked. No sooner did I reach the door than I realised it was locked.

Not + object
e.g. Not a single word did she say.

Not only.....but also

Not until
e.g. Not until January will I have a holiday.

Nowhere
e.g. Nowhere had Susan seen a more beautifully decorated room.

Only after
This is usually used with the simple past. e.g. Only after the film started did I realise that I'd seen it before.

On no account/Under no circumstances
e.g. On no account should you be absent from your seminars.

Only then/if/when/later
This is usually used with the simple past. e.g. Only then did I know what I had got myself into.

Rarely/Seldom/Never
These are most commonly used with the present perfect or past perfect, & with modals such as can and could. The present simple can also be used. e.g. Seldom have I seen him looking so miserable. "Rarely does a movie make you feel so warm and so uneasy at the same time." - Review of `Hearts in Atlantis` in the
Canadian Province, 28/09/01

Never in her life had she experienced this exhilarating emotion.

Scarcely/Barely....when
This is used to refer to an event that quickly follows another. It is usually used with the past perfect. e.g. Scarcely had I arrived home when there was a knock on the door.

So......that
This is a common inversion, usually used with an adjective & the verb `be`. e.g. So exciting was the soap opera, that I forgot to do my English homework. It can also be used with much. e.g. So much did she adore John, that she would not give him up.

Such....that
Used with the verb `be` and a noun, it means so much or so great. e.g. Such was the popularity of the soap opera, that the streets were deserted whenever it was on.