The keyboard in front of you is an unforgiving beast with many letters and symbols. If you're like me, you're willing to admit that some have never been meaningfully graced by your touch because, frankly, you don't even know their purpose. Horse radish may not be a punctuation mark (please, don't even attempt it), but a guillemet sure is!
What's that? You've never even heard of that funny French word? Well, you won't find that it's served at any fine dining restaurant. Instead, prepare to familiarize yourself with the best and worst punctuation marks available on your very own keyboard.
1. Period .
Long live the period. It's the lawman of syntax and prevents what we write from looking or sounding like stream-of-consciousness jargon.
2. Comma ,
By rule, commas allow us to write and write without truly committing the error of producing run-on sentences, which is pretty cool. Though they're dead, Marcel Proust and David Foster Wallace would've given a shout out to the comma.
3. Exclamation Mark !
Holy cow! These things are awesome and let you express a range of emotions from anger and excitement! Depending on how many you use, you can project those emotions further!!!
4. Apostrophe '
I'm not personally a huge fan of apostrophes, but they let us write lazily. You don't have to write "do not" or "I am." Instead, you can opt for the simpler way of writing and that's something that we're all guilty of.
5. Hyphen -
Some languages disregard the hyphen and create some pretty interesting words by just smashing one and one together. While that happens in English, too, the hyphen alleviates some problems by giving us the opportunity to join words a bit more smoothly. That way, they're not as weird-looking.
6. Ellipsis ...
Ah, yes... Strangely versatile, an ellipsis doesn't just have to be used when you want to insert a partial quote. You can use it to show silence and even suspense...
7. Quotation Marks " "
Their most proper functions are to quote direct speech or be placed around the titles of short works. However, we like to use them the most to show sarcasm. For example:
JEFF: Hey, where's Steve?
CHRIS: He's "hanging out" with his girlfriend.
JEFF: Ah... I see.
8. Question Mark ?
The question mark seems pretty essential to language, but you don't really need one to show that you're questioning something. Because, of course, Jethro Tull deserved that Grammy over Metallica in 1989.
9. Parentheses ( )
Using parentheses is a popular way of interrupting oneself. If you want to make a side point when you're writing (it's just a suggestion and not a recommendation), you can go ahead and use these little guys (I don't think they have any gender (although "guy" can be used gender-neutrally). Forgive me.).
10. Colon :
Sure, you can use it as a means to introduce a quote, but how else are you going to make some nifty lists? For example, here are things that I should have done today but I didn't: woken up early, exercised, walked my dog, fed my dog... just kidding.
11. Semicolon ;
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote the following word: "Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college." Yikes.
12. Dash --
Not a hyphen and not parentheses. Few people still use it. Sadly, Vonnegut never wrote anything about the dash. Linda Ellis did, however, in a poem called "The Dash Poem." It's not that good and she has it copyrighted, so whatever. Go read it - or not.
13. Slash /
Used minimally, such as when writing "s/he" or Latino/a," gender-neutral language is pretty much doing away with the slash. Thank goodness. I got ninety-nine problems and a slash ain't one.
14. Brackets [ ]
I started raking in A's on college essays when I mastered the art of the bracket. That's really pretentious.
15. Curly Brackets { }
It doesn't matter what they're used for BECAUSE THEY LOOK LIKE SIDEWAYS MUSTACHES.
16. Asterisk *
There are few good reasons to ever use a f*cking asterisk. My advice is: don't look for those reasons.
17. Guillemets < >
Not using guillemets > using guillemets.
