Comments on: My five favorite punctuation marks

By: SmithWriting Blog

SmithWriting Blog — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:40:33 +0000

The ellipsis is cool, but ……

how do I use it?
So glad you asked.
Comprised of three dots called ellipsis points, an ellipsis is a punctuation mark used to indicate an omission. It’s also used to express a pause or trailing off of thought.
Some examples:
“When I’m elected may…

By: Rebecca Smith

Rebecca Smith — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:41:17 +0000

A wonderful post on my favorite subject: punctuation. Thanks, Beth! Although I have to disagree; I am obsessed with em dashes and use them quite often (perhaps to a fault). (Did I use enough punctuation marks in this comment?)

By: steph

steph — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:12:28 +0000

Mark: Loved the book, though it differs from our Canadian style…

By: Mark McClure Coaching

Mark McClure Coaching — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:08:35 +0000

reminds me of “Eats, Roots and Leaves” – a best selling book on UK punctuation.

http://www.amazon.com/Eats-Shoots-Leaves-Tolerance-Punctuation/dp/1592400876

Jack has probably read it. Period.
I definitely need to.

By: Carla

Carla — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:32:30 +0000

I have a thing for parenthesis myself.

By: EST

EST — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:07:09 +0000

H-m-m-m-m! Sent me back to my Strunk and White with this one. I didn’t remember that colons could be used where I normally use a semi-colon. Thanks for the refresher and sending me back to an old friend.

By: Papa

Papa — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:02:13 +0000

Aww Beth

By: Beth

Beth — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:46:32 +0000

(Shhh… no one tell him that he needed to capitalize “Word”)

By: Papa

Papa — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:40:16 +0000

Do you realize how hard it is to write someone who has such a passion for perfection in grammar? I am afraid to write more than a single word.

I am going to copy this into word for a check on spelling and punctuation.

Good thing I did. I used a period instead of a question mark.

Pop

By: steph

steph — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:38:51 +0000

I have a few publishers who also break the en-/em-dash rule, actually. Rather than use the em for breaks and the en in number ranges, they use the en for breaks and a hyphen for number ranges. I think it’s actually mostly to do with looks.

I just use whatever I feel like or is called for by the style guide at the time!

I’ve cut down on semicolon use, too. I use periods more. But that stems from an overuse of them in academic texts.