Punctuation Visible Speech a short course in the fundamentals Lesson 12, part five By Joe Napora

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Why Punctuation? Writing is something we see before we hear it. When we read, we translate the written signs [letters made into words made into sentences…] into sounds. To help readers make better sense of this translation, we use a very few additional signs.

End Signs We have signs that go at the end of sentences. They act something like a stop sign. Period . Question Mark ? Exclamation Point ! [These signs sometimes appear within quotation marks.]

More on End Signs End signs end the sentence. This sentence ends with a period. A sentence (or sometimes a single word) that asks a question ends with a question mark. Doesn’t it? A sentence that indicates yelling, screaming, a voice raised higher than normal is indicated by an exclamation mark. Listen!

.Periods. Periods sometimes indicate when we take a deep breath if we spoke the sentence. Unfortunately, none of the punctuation signs are consistent indicators of how we speak. We could, for instance, pause long when we speak the words “for instance,” but we wouldn’t write the sentence like this: We could. For instance. Pause when we speak the words “for instance,” ...

?Question Marks? The Spanish language has a better sign system for question marks. When you read a question in Spanish, you know immediately that the sentence is going to be a question because there is an upside down question mark at the beginning of the sentence as well as a regular question mark at the end. What? ? Que?

!Exclamation Marks! We don’t get more emphasis by using more exclamation marks!!!!!!!! How many times do I have to tell you????? Nor do we get more emphasis by using more than one question mark. Well, maybe we do, but it’s not good practice. Someday the exclamation mark may be replaced with sentences written in BOLD and ENLARGED type.

INSIDE SIGNS We have signs that go within sentences. Apostrophe ’ Semi-colon ; Colon : Quotation Marks “ ” The most used inside sign, the comma: , Parentheses ( ) Hyphen - Dash -- Ellipses ...

Apostrophes The apostrophe indicates possession. The hat belongs to the boy; therefore, it is the boy’s hat. If more than one boy owns the hat, then it is the boys’ hat. [ Logically we should write it as “the boys’s hat” but punctuation and spelling are not very logical.] Apostrophes are also used to indicate speed in speech: contractions. We say it’s instead of it is, don’t instead of do not, won’t instead of will not.

Semi-colons The main use for the semi-colon is to join two complete sentences that are closely related. John went to the store. He bought apples, grapes, and a watermelon. We combine these two sentences into one, joined with a semi-colon. John went to the store; he bought apples, grapes, and a watermelon. [Sometimes semi-colons separate items in a list.]

Colons Colons have a very limited use. People can write for years and never use one. Some people use them often because they make lists. There are lists for many things: people, dogs, cats, houses, blouses, mouses (that’s mice, isn’t it?). Sometimes colons function a lot like the semi-colon: they join two sentences, the second subordinate to the former.

Quotation Marks You say something. You write it down. You use quotation marks to indicate exactly what you said. You ask your friend, John, how he is doing. “John,” I asked, “How are you doing?” You can also write this quote other ways: I asked, “John. How are you doing?” “John. How are you doing?” I asked.

Quotation Marks Quotation marks are very handy; they help since they allow us to indicate speech as well as sentences that we quote from other written materials. But sometimes they cause problems. There are two main problems: 1) end punctuation, and 2) quotes within quotes.

Quotes Within Quotes When we quote something, we place it within quotation marks. But what if we quote something that has already been quoted? John loves Mary. I wrote the sentence “John loves Mary.” We use single quotes within the double quotes. He said, “I wrote the sentence ‘John loves Mary’.”

End Quotes Sometimes quotation marks come at the end of sentences (and sometimes as the beginning). When a sentence ends with a quotation mark, periods cause problems [and also commas, which are not end punctuation but are affected by the quotation marks in the same way]). “John loves Mary,” I said. Here the period ends the sentence. I said, “John loves Mary.” Here the period is inside the quotation marks, not at the end. This is not logical, but it’s the way we do it.

Parentheses In drama, the play writer will often indicate an aside, a time when an actor will speak directly to another actor or to the audience. Parentheses often work like an aside. In drama, the play writer will often speak directly with the audience [using a technique called an aside] to get comic effect.

Hyphens Hyphens join words and parts of words together to get additional meaning or to create new words, usually new nouns or adjectives. brother-in-law re-make twenty-two This is a hard-to-understand type of punctuation because there are no clear rules about how to use it. For instance, something could just be hard to understand.

Dashes Dashes are just longer hyphens that can give extra emphasis--more than a comma can give.

Ellipses When we don’t need to quote everything, we must still indicate that we left out information. In this case we use a punctuation mark that looks like three periods run together. We use an ellipsis. I wrote, “When we don’t need to quote everything….[W]e use an ellipsis. We use square brackets [ ] to make certain that our new sentence is correct in grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.

Commas Commas cause problems because commas sometimes act like short pauses in speaking and sometimes act like little signs that separate items in a series, that introduce quotes in speaking, that come after greetings, and that do a lot of un-related things.

More Signs & { } < > @ # $ * % + = & { } < > @ # $ * % + = There are a few other signs we use in writing, most taken from math, logic, drafting, science, and computer science.

The End Of Parts One to Five