What is Punctuation?

Punctuation utilises definitive marks in written text to separate sentences and their elements and clarify meaning. It breaks apart sentences or clauses using spaces and symbols known as punctuation marks. Punctuation is essential to writing because it helps readers understand text without difficulty. The rules constantly evolve and vary with language, location, register, and time. Specific punctuation aspects are stylistic and are the writer's choice of shorthand language forms, such as those used in online chat and text messages.

There are fourteen essential punctuation marks in English grammar, including the full stop, apostrophe, comma, question mark, exclamation mark, quotation mark, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, parenthesis, bracket, brace, and ellipsis.

Sometimes it is easier to comprehend punctuation when reading an example or two. Therefore, here is a simple sentence that ends with the correct mark, "What time does the game start?"

## The Rules

It would seem a big deal if the world was left without Netflix, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube or Tik Tok. But what if the world was left without all the commas, apostrophes, and full stops? Only grammarians or centenarians would care. People overlook punctuation when typing a text message or an online comment, so why should anyone care about using punctuation? Punctuation is so essential that the United States celebrates "National Punctuation Day" every year on September 24. However, it is yet to be recognised and observed in the United Kingdom. With that in mind, one should not believe that everyone in the UK ignores punctuation, as some people, including the owner of Grammar King, take it very seriously. However, do the rules hold any importance?

Someone with no interest in punctuation should imagine reading Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix - which has 257,045 words - without any full stops. They would find it challenging and have to read it repeatedly to make sense of it. Luckily, the book is punctuated correctly, so everyone can easily read it.

While language is essential, some people's vocabulary has shrunk in recent years. These days many people rely on auto-correction tools for spelling, grammar, etc., and when it comes to punctuation, it is apparent that people worldwide are living under a rock. Modern humans do not care for punctuation, and laziness and ignorance have won.

In a world of creative people, punctuation is essential. Correct punctuation may improve one's writing skills and style, even in formal or casual English. Therefore, the rules matter and everyone should follow them. Surprisingly, inaccurate use or lack of punctuation can transform the meaning of one's writing - often making it look untidy and wrong. Here are five simple punctuation rules:

1. All Punctuations Must be Parallel

2. Apostrophes Only Show Possession or Omission

3. A Full Stop (Period) Must End A Sentence.

4. A Colon Must Appear at the End of a Clause

5. Semicolons are Used for Equal Emphasis

## Usage

Punctuation fills our writing with silent intonation. We halt, stop, emphasise, or make an inquiry using a comma, a full stop, an exclamation point, or a question mark. Accurate punctuation adds clarity and precision to writing; it allows the writer to stop, pause, or emphasise certain parts of the sentence.

Apostrophe

Apostrophe mistakes often happen when the plural and possessive forms are mixed up. Furthermore, they have been misused over the years. The apostrophe is not strictly a punctuation mark but more a part of a word to indicate possessive cases, contractions, or omitted letters.

Capitalisation

Capitalisation rules are countless and quite often demanding. This discussion concentrates on the most basic rules used in capitalisation.

Colon

Sometimes deciding when to use a colon or a semicolon can be confusing. The colon provides an example or more detailed information in the sentence.

Comma

Most often, commas are used to separate items in a series or to set off introductory phrases. This section outlines the most common comma uses. Consider the following sentence:

Parentheses

Parentheses are used to explain the statement or provide explanatory information in the sentence.

Period

A period, a question mark, or an exclamation point should mark the end of a complete sentence. If a sentence is incomplete and terminated by a period, we have a sentence fragment, as in the sentence below.

Quotation

A direct quote needs to be enclosed in quotation marks. Periods, question marks, and exclamation points are placed inside quotation marks, but colons and semicolons are placed outside. Do not enclose indirect quotations in quotation marks.

Semicolon

Semicolons join ideas that are related and equal in grammatical structure. Use a semicolon to join two related independent clauses in place of a comma and a coordinating conjunction. Use a semicolon between related sentences when the second sentence starts with either a conjunctive adverb or a transitional expression, to replace a comma when using a coordinating conjunction to link independent clauses that already contain commas or replace when individual items in a series are long or have commas.