I may be in love…. A guy named Jack from the UK wrote me this weekend to tell me that I was missing a “full stop,” otherwise known as a period. On my website, Jack thought I should have a period after the word say where it says “Create content for organizations with something to say.”

Jack, you made my day. For a man to care so much about punctuation that he takes the time to offer his suggestions… ah, that’s heaven to me. I respectfully disagree with your assessment, however, seeing as the phrase is not a complete sentence. Perhaps I should make it title case, though.

Jack brings to mind my ongoing love affair with punctuation, proven by the fact that I once gave an online chat guy my phone number when he used a semicolon correctly. I love the rigidness of the rules, and, even more, I love to break them for emphasis.

Here are my favorites:

  1. Ellipses Marks
    Oh… how I love the pregnant pause that a well-placed set of ellipses marks will give a sentence. I take care to use three periods mid-sentence, and four at the end of a sentence.
  2. The En Dash
    Again — this mark of punctuation matches my flair for the dramatic. For me, the standard is [space][en dash][space]. Microsoft Word gives you an en dash automatically when you type two dashes together. I think the en dash is so much more elegant than the em dash, which I consider overkill. The rule books say I’m supposed to use the em dash for a break in a sentence, but this is a rule I like to break.
  3. Colons
    I love using a colon between two sentences: the way they melt together is simply art. The second sentence explains or expands on the first and offers a lovely variation of back-to-back sentences.
  4. Semicolons
    A semicolon can bring two sentences together; act as a ‘super comma’ for lists within lists, plus lists with extra commas; and can get you my phone number.
  5. The Good Old Period
    Really, there’s no beating a simple period to make a statement. No, really.