One of my students once told me that when she writes something she always puts a comma wherever she thinks someone should take a breath. She defended this by saying this is what they do in a musical ...

Punctuation marks aren't just resigned to the symbols on your keyboard. There are plenty more - like the exclamation comma - that never made it into type but nonetheless exist. The exclamation comma ...

Once dismissed as a fussy, somewhat effete affectation, the white-gloved cousin to the callused, workaholic comma or brutally abrupt period, the semicolon might be coming into its own. Most people, ...

Comma was being tried in the Court of Grammar and Punctuation. The interrogators included Full Stop, Question Mark, Exclamation Point, Apostrophe, Hyphen, and Dash. You are really no use whatsoever.

Recently in this space we talked about how, when two punctuation marks bump up against each other, one can sometimes preclude the other. For example, a phrase that would normally be followed by a ...

Even the lowly comma — and hyphen — get their 15 minutes of fame. Actually, make that 24 hours, for today is National Punctuation Day, a time to enthuse over exclamation points, brake for brackets and ...

There's a well-worn joke that if you call a copy editor anal-retentive, he'll look that up to see if it's hyphenated. It is, I am, and it's my job. Many people can give dignified one-word answers to ...

While we all slip up from time to time, there are some basic punctuation mistakes you should never make in formal writing. For example, don't confuse "it's" and "its," don't use an apostrophe to ...

It did just then comma it gives you quite a thrill stop the sub hyphen conscious takes over and apposite words just tumble out. I have been wanting to do this for a long time stop namely comma to ...