60. Punctuation — Part 1
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Tedious thought it may seem, the only way to master punctuation properly is to go through the elements of it one by one. The rules are not quite as onerous as most of us remember from our schooldays. In fact they’re great fun if we approach them in the right spirit of enterprise.
To command the dizzy heights of superior punctuating, only twelve elements need to be learned. Grasp these and you are in control. One hour of your time and you’ll be master of the dot in dotcom, if nothing else.
Enough of the pep talk, let’s get down to business.
Full stop
Or “point” in American. This minuscule entity ends all sentences which don’t end with a question mark or exclamation mark. The next character is usually a capital letter.
It can also be used for abbreviations: etc. or e.g.
After a quotation, the full stop goes inside the quotation marks if the whole sentence is the quote; outside the quotation marks, if the quote is only a part of the sentence.
Comma
Of all the objects in the world of punctuation, the comma is the most problematical. Placing this curiously attractive little entity in a sentence is a minefield of rules and, even worse, opinions. The old-school, rather disciplinarian approach, was to place a comma at every point where there was a natural pause for breath. Nowadays, whole texts seem to rush by with scarcely a comma to be seen. The latter solution is clearly unsatisfactory because it results in much ambiguity of meaning. The following is a fairly comprehensive guide to comma usage using the system suggested by Oxford University.
a) Between similar qualifying adjectives: “An abstemious, taciturn woman.”
But if there is no similarity, there is no comma: “A dull grey shirt.” Just think list. Abstemious and taciturn are a short list of qualities pertaining to the woman. Whereas dull and grey are different qualities; indeed a form of grey might well be described as dull. It’s clearly not a list.
b) Separating items in a list: “Books, CDs, and videos.” The comma after CDs is sometimes omitted. It’s often known as the “Oxford comma”.
Exception: “A black and white picture.” Where black and white form a recognisable phrase rather than a list. Black and white could be changed to monochrome. “Books, CDs” is not reducible because it is a list.
c) Separating co-ordinated main clauses: “Residents to the left, visitors to the right.”
Exception — when they are closely allied: “Listen to me and you might learn something.”
d) For parenthetical words/phrases: “If you do go, however, you may regret it.” Or “The man, who was not strong, soon gave up.”
Exceptions — restrictive relative clauses: “People who are short should wear high heels.”
e) Following participial or verbless clauses. “Having gone for a walk, I felt a whole lot better.” “The concert over, the audience left.”
Exception — “My daughter Mary.”
f) A separating comma is used to avoid misunderstanding: “From the houses above, the church seemed very small.” Otherwise you would read: From the houses above the church…followed by the meaningless “seemed very small.” These nuances can be very important, especially in technical writing where unclear instructions could lead to danger.
Exceptions: do not use a comma to separate a verb from an object that is a clause: “They thought, that they had it made.” is wrong, as is a comma used to separate a phrasal subject from its predicate: “A man with great strength, should always be careful of others.”
g) Use after words which introduce quoted speech: “He shouted, ‘Watch your back!’”
h) In letters following Dear Susan, Dear Sir, &c., and after Yours faithfully, etc.
But it’s not necessary following a number in an address, e.g. “10 Downing Street”; or between month and year in a date, e.g. “October 2001”.
Semicolon
A comma is the least emphatic break in a sentence. If there is a need for a more distinct break, but not sufficient for a new sentence — always a hair-line decision — a semicolon is mustered. Usually the semi will divide clauses of equal importance and similar grammatical construction, e.g. “Waking is a pleasure; sleeping on even better.” It may also be used in a sentence where commas are already employed, but where a stronger break is called for, e.g. “They approached quickly, though with some trepidation, and took stock of the situation; but decided it was none of their business.”
Colon
a) The colon connects two grammatically complete clauses where the second represents a step forward from the first, or gives further explanation, e.g. “The idea had widespread support: the merging of the two groups would improve finances.”
b) To introduce a list: one, two, three. Or after expressions, “For example”, “the following”, &c.
c) For an emphatic, formalized introduction to speech, “He emphasised: ‘Don’t do it!’”
Next: 61, Punctuation — Part 2.
