….don’t leave home without it Punctuation ….don’t leave home without it

Courtesy of… Ask me to tell the joke…… A panda goes into a restaurant and eats a meal. Before he leaves starts shooting the place up. . “What are you doing?” screams a waitress. The panda replies, “When I looked myself up in the dictionary, it said a panda eats, shoots and leaves.

Punctuation is important A woman without her man is nothing. A woman, without her man, is nothing. A woman: without her, man is nothing.

Dear Jack, I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart I can be happy forever. Will you let me be? Yours, Dear Jack, I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy-will you let me be yours?

The Comma,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 1. used for lists 2. joins sentences 3. fills in gaps 4. used before direct speech 5. sets off interjections 6. come in pairs

The COMMA ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Use commas 1. In a list Ex: My mom bought eggs, milk, cereal, and bread at the store. Put comma before the “and” (the Oxford comma)

The COMMA ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Use commas 2. before dialog “Study your EX: I say, vocabulary”

The COMMA likes to pair up Use commas 3. to mark out additional information EX: Mrs. Teacher, our evil language arts teacher, will be grading our timed writes. Mrs. Teacher will be grading our timed writes. If you take out the additional information the sentence is still grammatically correct!!! Yippee

Comma- makes connections 4. Used when 2 complete sentences are joined together using the conjunctions ,And ,or ,but ,while ,yet

Annie had dark hair; Sally, fair. Comma- fills in gaps p 89 5. fills in gaps ( for the sophisticated writer) Annie had dark hair; Sally, fair. Sally had fair hair. Implied

Comma- sets off interjections 6. Sets off interjections EX: Holy Bologna, I received an A on An essay!

Comma brilliance Don’t be stupid! Where does it belong? Sam walked on her head, a little higher than usual. HUH???

Comma brilliance Don’t be stupid! Where does it belong? The driver managed to escape from the vehicle before it sank and swam to the river bank. WHAT???

The fabulous, versatile apostrophe’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ Good for many occasions!!! 1. Indicates possession 2. Indicates time or quantity 3. Indicates the omission of letters 4. Indicates the omission of numbers in dates 5. Indicates strange, nonstandard English. 6. Used in certain surnames ( last names) 7. Indicates plurals of words

The Apostrophe’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ 1. Indicates Possession When you DO NOT need one ( these are called possessive determiners My Your his Her Our Its Their When you DO NOT need one ( these are called possessive pronouns) Mine Yours His Hers Its ours Theirs

The Apostrophe’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ 1. Indicates Possession To indicate a possessive of a plural noun EX: The student’s calculator EX: The group’s timed writes, EX: The women’s movement EX: The babies’ bottle EX: The boys’ hats

The Apostrophe’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ 2. Indicates time or quantity EX: In one week’s time EX: Two weeks’ notice EX: Four yards’ worth WRONG

EX: The summer of ‘72. EX: Class of ‘11 The Apostrophe’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ 3. Indicates omission of number in dates EX: The summer of ‘72. EX: Class of ‘11

The Apostrophe’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ 4. Indicates omission of letters EX: I s’pose, if we hadn’t stopped ‘im she would have hit ‘im. EX: I suppose, if we had not stopped him she would have hit him. Use in dialog to reveal dialect Used by Shakespeare to make iambic pentameter Used to make contractions of words

The Apostrophe’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ It/ it’s conundrum The rules is: It’s stands for “it is” or “it has” If the sentence does not make sense, add the “is” or “has” then It is “its”

Its got very cold outside Its mine That was its theme. Let’s practice Its your turn Its got very cold outside Its mine That was its theme.

Fabulous Apostrophe Indicates strange, non-standard English Used in literature to demonstrate any type of accent EX: Their Eyes Were Watching God Huckleberry Finn

Fabulous Apostrophe 6. used in surnames EX: Scarlett O’Hara EX: Patrick O’Neil

Fabulous Apostrophe 7. Indicates plural of letters How many i’s are in the word Mississippi? The student was getting A’s on her timed writes.

Fabulous Apostrophe Indicates plurals of words What are do’s and don’ts ? There are too many but’s and and’s at the beginning of sentences these days. NOTE: Word will underline this in red.

Colons:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 1. Almost always preceded by a complete sentence. EX: Tom has only one rule in life: Never eat anything bigger than your head. Tom has only one rule in life. Never eat anything bigger than your head. 2. Reminds us that there is more to the statement than meets the eye. EX: You can do it: And you will do it.

Colons…………………use them right 3. Used to separate oppositional statements. EX: Man proposes: God disposes. SOOOO, colons introduce the part of the sentence that explains, restates, elaborates, undermines, or balances the preceding part.

Colons:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 4. The start of lists. EX: A model student always has a: pen, pencil, eraser, marker, highlighter, calculator, protractor, lip balm, and mini dictionary. 5. Set off book and film sub-titles from the main title. EX: Berks and Wankers: A pessimist’s view of language preservation EX: Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.

Colon 6. They separate dramatic characters from dialog (in a script or play). EX: Mrs. Teacher: Are you ready for your timed write? Students: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! 7. They start off long quotations (40 words or more)

The Semicolon;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; 1. Only full sentences should be joined by the semicolon. Linking words like However Nevertheless Also consequently Hence these transition words require a semicolon

The semicolon Used as a sort of super comma ( I DO NOT advocate this because you ( sorry) need to learn to walk the grammatically correct way before you can run. EX: It was a terrible day for the student: he lost his calculator; he forgot his vocabulary words; his girlfriend dumped him; he forgot to sign up for the AP exams. Indicates a list acts as super comma

Fun with punctuation Tom locked himself in the shed. England lost to Argentina. Unrelated sentences? Tom locked himself in the shed; England lost to Argentina. Events occurred at same time, but are they related??? Tom locked himself in the shed: England lost to Argentina. Ah, Tom locked himself in the shed because England lost to Argentina.

Think you can remember all that?