Let’s Punctuate – part-2
Let’s Punctuate
(PART-2)
Hey, reader!
How is your day going? Is it fun, vibrant, productive, or sloppy? Whatever it may be, don’t forget to do this: read, write, revise, repeat.
Yes, I genuinely want to know how your day is going but there is also a hidden motive behind writing this. To make you revise! Yes. So how many punctuation marks did I use in the above statement? Well, all those that we learned in the past blog. Commas, period/full stop, colon, semi-colon, and question marks are apparent in almost all the sentences we use in our daily life. But there is more that we should know and properly use to make sense of our sentences.
As discussed in the previous blog, punctuation marks are the indicators that help the writer to take short pauses, and long pauses, tell the readers if they are questioning something, show emotion, or just pass on information.
Today, let’s kick-start our learning process, and read more about the next five important punctuation marks.
This punctuation mark is used to quote the exact speech said by the narrator, written in between the opening quote (“) and closing quote (”). As per the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary quotation marks are used as “a pair of marks (‘ ’) or ( “ ” ) placed around a word, sentence, etc. to show that it is what somebody said or wrote, that it is a title or that you are using it in an unusual way.” There are two types of quotation marks — single quotation marks (‘’) or double quotation marks (“”). Where single quotation marks are used to quote names, book titles, movie titles, characters, and specific terms that are given more importance than usual; double quotation marks are used to write dialogues or to exact speech said by someone.
Example:
- Have you heard about new-gen slang like ‘FOMO’, ‘GRWM’, or ‘YOLO’?
- Have you listened to ‘BackStreet Boys’ latest album?
- She said, “I’ll reach in the next five minutes.”
- “Did you finish your homework?” asked the teacher.
Capitalization of Words
Use of capital letters like A B C D and so on.
As a grammatical rule, you should keep the first letter of every sentence in the capital form. This is the most basic and important rule which you should never omit. Other than this, the first letter of a word should be in the capital in proper nouns including names, when a dialogue opens, days, months, holidays (but not seasons), books, movies, song names, countries, religions, nationalities, languages, and after exclamation marks.
Example:
- Hey! How have you been? It has been a long time since I met you.
- How is Ron and Tim? Are they still living in London?
- Her birthday is on May 1. It is also International Workers’ Day.
- Have you seen Titanic?
Hyphen
Denoted by –
Hyphen is used to bring together two words to form one compound word with a meaning. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a hyphen is “a punctuation mark – used especially to divide or to compound words, word elements, or numbers”. It is used to refer to physical quantities, numbers, and time-frames, and adding prefixes and suffixes.
Examples:
- The quote the teacher told is on page fifty-eight.
- The toddler is a happy-go-lucky child.
- He has brown-colored eyes.
- He has a five-foot-long scale to measure.
Dash
Denoted by — or –
According to the Collins Dictionary, a dash is defined as “a straight, horizontal line used in writing, for example, to separate two main clauses whose meanings are closely connected.” And Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “a punctuation mark — that is used especially to indicate a break in the thought or structure of a sentence”. It is used when the pause is longer than a comma but shorter than a semicolon.
Example:
- Delhi—Hyderabad flight is at 8:30 pm.
- Passengers — both men and women — were given extra bottles of water.
- Mathematics — be it hard or easy — is not liked by many.
- Thomas – the exchange student – is smart.
Exclamation Mark
Denote by !
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines an exclamation mark as “a mark used especially after an interjection or exclamation to indicate forceful utterance or strong feeling”. It signifies the use of strong emotions or feelings in a sentence. It is mostly used in an informal style of writing.
Example:
- Wow! The rainbow looks beautiful.
- How spendthrift you can be!
- Careful! The box has sharp edges.
- He failed his exams!
With this, we come to a short pause. Let’s first get thorough with these and then hop on to the last set of punctuation marks. But while memorizing it, don’t forget to revise the one we learned in the previous blog. Here is the link, go check! 