Exclamation mark, also known as exclamation point or shout mark, is used for exclamations to show the strong feelings and high volume. Its use has some rules you need to consider.

Uses of Exclamation Mark

1. Use exclamation mark after exclamations, interjections, commands, and sentences expressing astonishment (great surprise).

Exclamation:

What a wonderful day this is!
You’ve got a sweet ride there!

Interjection:

Wow!
Oh my God!
Sorry!

Command:

Go!
Leave it alone!
Stop doing that!

Astonishment:

The animal we saw in the jungle was this big!

2. You can also use exclamation mark in the middle of a sentence, too.

Afterward, oh! there was a frightful noise.

3. Exclamation mark can also be used with a question mark to express protest or great surprise.

Did he really betray his wife?!
You mean he can do this job?! I don’t think so.

The Rules of Using Exclamation Mark

1. Do not overuse exclamation mark; it does not look formal. Usually, comic books end their sentences with many exclamation marks. Click here to see an example page.

That’s awesome!!!
Oh my dear Lord! That’s classic!!

2. In English, do not put any space between the final word in the statement and the exclamation mark.

Incorrect: The Donnas were really great last night !
Correct: The Donnas were really great last night!

Semicolon is pronounced /’sɛmɪkoʊlən/ and has two uses.

1. To separate two related, independent clauses.

Digital technology is becoming more advanced everyday; the future of our lives cannot be imagined so easily regarding the fast pace of its advancement.

The Government shunned the calls for negotiations; it was a signal which meant war.

Important Note

You must not use a conjunction like and, or, or but after the semicolon. However, you can use conjunctive adverbs after the semicolon.

2. To separate a complex series of items, especially the ones that contain commas.

I went to the party with Andy, my colleague; Jane, his wife; and Amy, my girlfriend.

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Colon is pronounced /koʊlən/ and has two uses.

1. To introduce a list of items.

• She mentioned three factors causing obesity: genetics, lack of physical activity, and psychiatric illnesses.
• In the dorm, we all had responsibilities: cooking, washing the dishes, cleaning the rooms, and shopping.

Important Note

Make sure you always use the colon after an independent clause (a complete sentence). Do not use it when you want to introduce a series of items normally.

Incorrect: In the party, he met: Jane, Doug, Mandy, and Brian.
Correct: In the party, he met Jane, Doug, Mandy, and Brian.
Correct: In the party, he met his old friends: Jane, Doug, Mandy, and Brian.

2. Colon is also used to introduce a quotation. Here, again, you need to use the colon after an independent clause.

• The free encyclopedia Wikipedia introduces heavy metal like this: “Heavy metal (often referred to simply as metal) is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and the United States. With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are generally associated with masculinity and machismo.”

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Depending on its font, apostrophe is shown in different shapes. Look at the examples below.

It’s great.

It’s great.

Besides the common uses, apostrophe has a lot of tiny and confusing uses, and they are different according to different authorities in English use. I have put here the most common uses of apostrophe.

1. Making contractions

• He is a teacher. —— He’s a teacher.
• We are not interested. —— We aren’t interested.

2. Indicating possession (used with s)

• ’s is used for singular nouns and irregular plurals.
  • John’s house is very big.
  • The boy’s father came home.
  • The children’s mother is a dentist.
  • The women’s room is on the left.

• s’ is used for regular plural nouns.
  • His parents’ car was missing.
  • The boys’ class starts at 10:00.

• s’ is used for classical and biblical names ending in -s.
  • Jesus’ life on earth was short.
  • Socrates’ ideas were against democracy.

3. Making the numbers and letters plural.

• He got two A’s at school.
• His phone number had many 1’s and 2’s.

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For some reason the entire world has suddenly decided that they should join this whiny anti-harassment group:

Click for full size.

Now I’m all for kids not harassing each other and being mean and such (though I do find all of the literature and support groups and what not on the subject a bit tiring), but I can’t support this group based on the fact that its creator and author is a clear bigot. The period is perhaps one of the most important and certainly the most frequently used punctuation marks. Its importance to the way we speak and write is immediately noticeable when it is omitted. Such is the case with the group description of “ACCEPT PEOPLE FOR WHO THEY ARE , don’t judge.” For someone who preaches so passionately about accepting our friends and neighbors in the LGBT community, different racial groups, and of different girths, Ryan Jacob Trufant, whose first crime was stealing my first name, seems to be quite the punctuation bigot. Well I’m calling you out Ryan: a comma is not the same thing as a period and I demand that you give the period the rightful place in your writing that it deserves. The period is a noble and important part of the punctuation community and has overcome more hardship than the comma will ever know. Constantly bombarded with harassment from the backslash, the question mark, the less than sign, the letter L, both the colon and its bastard son with the comma, the semicolon, and even the comma itself. Its only friend in the world is the greater than sign which bravely shields it from the onslaught of discriminatory practices of its colleagues.

No seriously though: you know where the period key is now. Use it. Its slightly annoying that you don’t.

Now here's a guy who takes his punctuation seriously.

This morning I received a message from a new e-friend, Tammy Lubbers, whose Facebook page is here.

“You wrote a book about punctuation?” she wrote. [She is referring to Comma Sense, a book that I don't think it immodest of me to acknowledge has made me famous throughout my house.] I KNEW I liked you! I’ve decided to begin a petition to eradicate apostrophes, as they are rarely used correctly. Want to join?”

I was appalled; I was aghast; I was mortified; I was eating a bowl of Life cereal, which is perfectly named since it’s not quite sweet enough.

Milk flying everywhere, I fired back this missile of a missive:

“God, no. I LOVE and constantly use the semicolon; I wholly depend upon it. SEE?! You start a club about how to use [the semicolon] correctly, and I’m your man. But eradicate it? No, no, no, no, no. We only have 13 punctuation marks, total. I NEED the semicolon. NEED, I SAY!!!”

My wife Catherine thinks I’m insane about punctuation. She’s wrong, of course. Period.

Now then. As a reader of my blog, I know that you are a literate: sophisticated, educated, knowledgable knowledgible smart. And Mrs. Lubbers, I happen to know, isn’t exactly a drooling admirer of shiny objects. So I ask: What think you of this move I have reason to know is burgeoning out there, of eradicating the semicolon? Are you for that? Is anyone? Do people really not know how to use this noblest (if most finicky) of punctuation marks?

If more of you vote for eradicating than saving the semicolon, I will swallow my protests, bow to your will, and see to it that the semicolon vanishes from use.

That’s right. I can do that. They don’t let just anybody write those books, you know.

So what say you, reader? Thumbs up or down for Ye Oldye Semicolon?

Related to this is my completely excellent When Punctuation Goes Really, Really Wrong.

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Rodrigo sent us this video full of qustions, so I’m not going to ask you any more.

but I wonder what has happened to all the people who have not done their tasks  yet?

?

They say solitude is your best teacher.

This week, I did a rough estimate and realize it takes about 15 people slots per week to accommodate to my lifestyle. Unlike some people, I simply cannot stand staying at home, hence I pack my week with activities – activities that are normally done with other peoples. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper. Movies, drinking, sports, chill. Teaching, sharing, playing, chatting. In a sense, it takes 15 people just to deal with one Zachary, per week.

I must be really taxing to befriend!

I obviously do not have the luxury of such company while I’m in Montreal. Yet, I have so many people envious of my 3 days week in McGill. Honestly, what would you do with the remanding 5 days? There is only so much traveling, sightseeing, exploring and playing you can pack into it. Some of my friends are “luckier”. They have mid terms, tests and homework to complete before they can enjoy a fraction of my freedom before their week ends and they turn the hourglass again.

We often ask for more time, but when we actually get it, how do you intend to spend it?

It may be liberating at the start, but it would not take long for it to turn mundane. Eventually, it would decompose into boredom and we might even turn to the desperate resort of killing time. What a tragedy! The amateur solution to the problem would be to punctuate it with activities. We institute milestones by chucking in the bungee jumps, skiing trips, watch the first snow fall and steal trips across the borders. We categorize the days of our lives into two types – the special days and the non-special days. The non-special days are spent on looking forward to the special days. Period.

It is like reading through a sentence looking for the punctuation marks. We breeze through entire paragraphs of our lives just like that.

The other way is to enjoy the unremarkable days. To find joy in the simple and the ordinary. To accept that they make up the majority of our life and to skip them would be to attempt murder on the bulk of our lives.

To enjoy both the words as well as the punctuation marks.

Here we go again. (Punctuation Anyone?)

 To punctuate, or not to punctuate; that is the question. Or should it be; question?  When in doubt, leave it out?  How about? Read it the way I wrote it. Catch all those little inflections in my voice. Pause when I pause, ramble when I ramble. Short pause, long pause; longer pause,, even my grammar checker doesn’t like that one.

 So what’s with the title of this Blog? And should the word blog even be capitalized? Hmm, I’m not really sure, but again; my grammar checker seems to think so. It says it’s a noun, but is it a proper noun? It’s a thing, I think; so perhaps it deserves a Capitol B.

 However, and as usual; I’ve rambled on  ahead of myself. The reason I am writing this silly little blog, (should there be a comma after, blog (or Blog)? Or should it be after,) is? Is; again I recently read a Blog by someone who seemed to be very upset with the author’s of several articles she had read and they hadn’t used a comma where she thought they belonged. What was that I said a few line ago? When in doubt, leave it out, or just simply read it the way I wrote it.

 I know all the things we were taught about punctuating a sentence, I also know I don’t talk that way. Moreover, I don’t write that way. I write a story the way I would recite it. I take short pauses, long pauses; even longer pauses,, (I emphasize,) and  I ramble. Furthermore, as you can see; (LONG PAUSE) I love to ramble. Rambling affords me the opportunity to write on and on for sometimes an entire paragraph without taking the time to take a single breath. Try it, it’s fun to try and find just the right combination of words that allow you to write on without a single comma or semicolon. See; (or is that see,?) no comma needed. At least not for me.

 So don’t be upset with they way a particular writer, or author gets his point across, just read it the way they wrote it. (I say they instead of he so I don’t sound like a chauvinist.) That’s why they wrote it that way in the first place, for you to enjoy, not to grade. Sorry; it needed a comma there somewhere. (I only put it there out of fear of retribution from my peers.)

 J. Francis

Punctuation marks are to writers what knives are to chefs. The more experienced the chef, the fewer the knives. It’s the same for fiction writers. We need periods for emphasis, commas to keep meanings clear, and dashes to allow for informative or humorous asides to the reader. We need quotation marks for dialogue, an occasional question mark, and a few apostrophes. Colons, used judiciously, tell readers to sit up straight and pay attention. But semicolons tell them it’s okay to let their minds wander because nothing much is going on except some dull episodic recitation.

For some reason, fiction writers in the 90s became besotted with semicolons, especially recent grads of MFA writing programs. It got so bad you could almost identify a fiction writer’s MFA school by the number of semicolons per short story. But as those writers matured and grew in confidence, they dropped the delusion they were creating complex ideas when they linked two compound phrases. Their stories therefore took on more power and clarity.

Since most copy-editors learned their trade in nonfiction, fiction writers sometimes have to be firm about keeping semicolons out of their work, especially light fiction done in first person. With every manuscript I send my editor, I include a note for the copy-editors requesting that no semicolons find their way into Dixie Hemingway’s sentences. First-person narratives have to be written the way real people talk, and real people don’t use semicolons in their speech. Giving Dixie semicolons would be like giving her hiccups.

Here we go again. (Punctuation Anyone?)

 To punctuate, or not to punctuate; that is the question. Or should it be; question?  When in doubt, leave it out?  How about? Read it the way I wrote it. Catch all those little inflections in my voice. Pause when I pause, ramble when I ramble. Short pause, long pause; longer pause,, even my grammar checker doesn’t like that one.

 So what’s with the title of this Blog? And should the word blog even be capitalized? Hmm, I’m not really sure, but again; my grammar checker seems to think so. It says it’s a noun, but is it a proper noun? It’s a thing, I think; so perhaps it deserves a Capitol B.

 However, and as usual; I’ve rambled on  ahead of myself. The reason I am writing this silly little blog, (should there be a comma after, blog (or Blog)? Or should it be after,) is? Is; again I recently read a Blog by someone who seemed to be very upset with the author’s of several articles she had read and they hadn’t used a comma where she thought they belonged. What was that I said a few line ago? When in doubt, leave it out, or just simply read it the way I wrote it.

 I know all the things we were taught about punctuating a sentence, I also know I don’t talk that way. Moreover, I don’t write that way. I write a story the way I would recite it. I take short pauses, long pauses; even longer pauses,, (I emphasize,) and  I ramble. Furthermore, as you can see; (LONG PAUSE) I love to ramble. Rambling affords me the opportunity to write on and on for sometimes an entire paragraph without taking the time to take a single breath. Try it, it’s fun to try and find just the right combination of words that allow you to write on without a single comma or semicolon. See; (or is that see,?) no comma needed. At least not for me.

 So don’t be upset with they way a particular writer, or author gets his point across, just read it the way they wrote it. (I say they instead of he so I don’t sound like a chauvinist.) That’s why they wrote it that way in the first place, for you to enjoy, not to grade. Sorry; it needed a comma there somewhere. (I only put it there out of fear of retribution from my peers.)

J. Francis

This recent article from Reader’s Digest details how Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson have made it their business – nay, their calling – to wipe out typos from all public signage. They’ve formed a group called the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) and have traveled around the country correcting editorially offensive signage – now that sounds like my kind of organization!

I doubt they do it as a public service; if they’re anything like me, it’s more of a compulsion than any attempt at re-educating the faultily learned masses. Quite simply: they can’t help themselves.

There’s also – if you can believe it – an Apostrophe Preservation Society – founded by Englander Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves (which is a delightfully funny, if somewhat acerbic, read).

According to Beth Quinn, who wrote in the Times Record-Herald of Middletown, NY (several years back) of Truss and her book:

“In her rather militant way, she pickets businesses that have apostrophe errors in their signage. Off she goes with a great big apostrophe on a stick and marches around in front until the business owner is shamed into correcting his punctuation.”

Now all we need is a Society for the Prevention of Hyphen Abandonment. I’ve got this little plastic box sitting on my desk – a box filled with stray hyphens – which I find myself accessing on a more regular basis lately as I read. It seems people just don’t know what to do with their hyphens, so they fling them about all willy-nilly, giddily hoping they’ll land in some functional configuration (appropriately wedged between two parts of a compound modifier, for instance). Sadly, though, that generally isn’t the case and they end up falling into words that should never be hyphenated – like “never-the-less.”

What’s your favorite maligned punctuation? Hackneyed strings of exclamation points employed by hyper-enthusiastic email correspondents? Interrobangs? (Still considered to be non-standard punctuation, the interrobang combines an exclamation point – or “bang” – with a question mark.) The oxford comma? (This is a comma that precedes the “and” near the end of a list of items.)

Let’s hear from you…

There’s usually at least one Delete Key Awards finalist that reads like an entry in a Bad Hemingway Parody contest. This year that spot on the shortlist goes to this passage from James Frey’s Los Angeles novel, Bright Shiny Morning:

“He said she would have a better life the sun shining every day more free time less stress she said she would feel like she had wasted a decade trying to get to the major leagues only to demote herself once she got into them.”

Should Frey’s effort be among the winners named on Monday?

Consider this: Terry McMillan made the 2007 shortlist for the passage below. But she didn‘t win, because the competition from Mitch Albom and Danielle Steel was just too tough even for this jawbreaker from her The Interruption of Everything:

“We tried you on your cell but you didn’t pick up so we got a little worried since we didn’t know where your appointment was and we tried calling Leon at work but his assistant said he left early to pick up his son at the airport and against our better judgment we tried your house and Hail Mary Full of Grace answered and after she deposed us, I asked if she knew your doctor’s number and she said she had to think for a few minutes and while she was thinking I started thinking who else we could call and that’s when I remembered your GYN’s name was a hotel: Hilton!”

Should Frey win — even though McMillan didn’t — given that Bright Shiny Morning isn’t up against a novel written third-grade reading level (Albom’s For One More Day) or brimming with stereotypes of Jews (Steel’s Toxic Bachelors)? If you would like to try to tamper with the jury, you have until Saturday.

© 2009 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

www.twitter.com/janiceharayda

We all know that sentences must end with a period and that apostrophes do not aid us in making plural nouns. Such knowledge, however, does not imply our punctuation is always perfect. As English language teachers, we are most likely more accurate than the average English speaker, but we can certainly fall prey to inattentiveness and just plain old doubt. Even for teachers, there is some confusion when it comes to:

·         Using or omitting commas with appositives.  Do not use commas with restrictive appositives. Examples:  The educational publisher Pearson Longman is always well represented at the annual TESOL convention.  (The appositive gives essential information. It identifies who the publisher is.) / This blog, a resource for ESL teachers, is sponsored by Pearson Longman. (It is not necessary to include the appositive.)

·         Deciding to capitalize the first word after a colon. Not all writer’s manuals agree, but it’s safe to always capitalize an independent clause following a colon. If, however, a colon introduces a series or a phrase, capitalization is not necessary unless that first word is a proper noun. Examples: Technology has a growing role in education: It is no longer limited to being a supplement or enhancement of traditional instruction, but rather it is shaping new forms of instruction such as webinars. / One amazing tool has allowed me to stay professionally active over the past three years: the Internet.

·         Using a dash. Often a colon, comma(s), or parentheses would serve us better than a dash. It seems dashes are inserted far more often in informal writing. Most manuals see the nature of the dash as abrupt. It can mark a change in the line of thinking or interject a comment. Example: I enjoy hearing from my YouTube viewers – all 13 thousand of them! – but I can’t respond to each and every message.

·         Hyphenating compound words. Sometimes there is a choice as in co-worker/ coworker. Creative compounds take away that choice: a sweet-as-honey voice. It’s easy to forget the first hyphen when there are two hyphenated compounds together, so observe: I like to teach 50- or 90-minute lessons.

·         Putting punctuation inside or outside the end quotation mark. Most sources in the US say to place periods and commas within quotation marks. Call me rebellious then because I follow the UK practice of placing periods and commas outside the quotation marks if they refer to the whole sentence. Examples: (US) It’s better to talk about grammar that is “challenging” rather than “difficult.”/ (UK – and Jennifer!) It’s better to talk about grammar that is “challenging” rather than “difficult”.

To help you provide the best writing model you can for your students, I’d suggest you note one or two websites with clearly stated explanations on punctuation and/ or purchase a copy of a good writer’s reference manual.

Online resources:

• The Punctuation Tree  
• Wikipedia

Offline resource: 

• Essentials of English

In a little flash of whimsy, I ended the annual Christmas letter thus:  “As we anticipate 2009, there are lots of question marks.  But there is one huge “period”:  “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever”–and there are many, MANY exclamation marks of praise to a God who is awesome, perfect in His knowledge of us, and unbounded in His love for His children.  All of that lets us face an uncertain future with great hope and with peace in believing that His best for us will come about as we trust and obey Him.  In a world that sometimes finds that whole concept to be nothing other than wishful thinking, we pray that the message of Christmas–”God loved us and sent His Son”–will find a fresh home in many hearts in this season we celebrate.”

What question marks are punctuating your today?  Are there “periods” that anchor your faith?  What exclamation marks of praise renew your perspective and give you hope?  Anyone care to share?

When I interviewed for a copy editing posititon at The Daily Cal, one of the interview questions I was asked was, “What is your favorite punctuation mark and why?”  We’re all nerdy grammarians at the copy desk, so my response was, “I’m so glad you asked that question.  I love the interrobang.”

The what‽

Feast your eyes on that. Aww yeah.

The interrobang.

It’s a combination question mark and exclamation point, to be used in instances like, “SHE SAID WHAT‽” or “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT‽“, when the normal ?+! combo just won’t do.  I love the muddled combination of utter surprise, confusion, and exitement an interrobang conveys.  And visually, it’s one of the most beautiful punctuation marks out there.  I mean, look at those curves and that serif stylizing.

It’s fallen out of fashion to use interrobangs (they were invented in 1962 and were the hot new thing to have on your typewriter keyboard for a while), but I think that retro styling just adds to the interrobang’s charm.

If I ever form a rock band, I want to be called The InterroBANGS.  Too bad this band already beat me to the punch.  Check out this facebook group dedicated to the revival of the interrobang.

Interrobang: a punctuation mark that combines the question mark (interrogative point) and the exclamation mark (writer’s slang — bang); the two are superimposed over one another.

The interrobang is commonly used when expressing question and disbelief simultaneously. While ‽ is the correct character of the interrobang (note the exclamation mark overlaps the the ligature of the question mark), writers often use ?! in its place due to its scarce inclusion in word processing character sheets and its obscurity in general.