Geraldine Woods - Websters New World Punctuation: Simplifed and Applied

Contents

For Kyra, the first of the next generation.

Websters New World Punctuation: Simplified and Applied

Copyright 2006 by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ

Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Woods, Geraldine.

Websters New World punctuation : simplified and applied / Geraldine Woods.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7645-9916-3 (isbn-13 : pbk.)

ISBN-10: 0-7645-9916-X (isbn-10 : pbk.)

1. English languagePunctuationHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title. PE1450.W66 2006

428.2dc22

2005023688

Introduction

A popular French entertainer once explained that a kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point. This sort of punctuation easily attracts interest, but until recently many grammarians and copy editors assumed that their passion for a properly placed semicolon was rare. Yet a substantial number of people do care about punctuation and would indeed like to know, for example, when a comma is called for. Moreover, everyone should care because punctuation is the roadmap that tells the reader how to arrive at the writers meaning.

Imagine that a worried student goes to a fortuneteller for advice about an important exam and receives this note:

The way you are studying you will take the test and pass not experiencing a miserable failure.

How is the student to react? Should the worrier open the book and study madly in an effort to avert disaster? Should the student, reassured by the prediction, take in a movie instead? The answer depends on the punctuation:

The way you are studying, you will take the test and pass, not experiencing a miserable failure.

The way you are studying, you will take the test and pass not, experiencing a miserable failure.

The preceding example illustrates what American writer Edgar Allan Poe meant when he said, The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood. The primary reason to place a punctuation mark in your text is to clarify the message, making sure that the reader grasps what you are trying to say.

Proper punctuation, like good grammar, has another purpose as well. The quality of your writing influences the impression you make on your boss, your teacher, or your personal correspondents. A job application letter or a note to a childs teacher that is marred by punctuation errors will, rightly or wrongly, make you less likely to be taken seriously. The reverse is also true: to attract and keep the readers serious attention, you must writeand therefore punctuatecorrectly.

Learning how to punctuate is relatively easy these days, but such was not always the case. The modern system of punctuation did not become standardized until the late 18th century. The preference of individual writers and printers determined the placement of punctuation, not the needs of the reader. In the works of Shakespeare, for example, periods, colons, and semicolons appear with seemingly little reason for one rather than the other. At various times polite but fierce battles broke out over the standards and practices of various punctuation marks. Thomas Jefferson, as he wrote the Declaration of Independence, joined a long-running dispute over apostrophes, placing an apostrophe in its (the possessive pronoun) in that document. In Jeffersons draft, the new government was organizing its powers. The non-apostrophists eventually won their point, and Jefferson was obliged to omit the apostrophe from its .

Jeffersons struggle illustrates an important point about punctuation: Each little symbol gets its meaning from an agreement between readers and writers. Educated people today have decided that the possession shown by the word its may be turned into a contraction with the addition of an apostrophe ( its ). Thus, its and its have different meanings. Had the standard been decided otherwise, its might have fulfilled both functions.

Although many punctuation rules clarify meaning, some exist for no reason at all apart from custom. With meaning not at stake, you may wonder why a writer should worry about where to place the period or whether a comma belongs inside or outside the quotation marks. The value of these punctuation customs is the sense of stability they provide. Seeing the period inside some quotation marks and outside others in the same piece of writing would be disconcerting. Proper punctuation works on an almost subconscious level. It guides the reader to the intended meaning without becoming too intrusive. Variations catch attention and distract the reader from the writers message. So arbitrary or not, punctuation customs are worth learning.

Unfortunately, the rules for punctuation are still not completely uniform. They change over time and according to location. Years ago writers placed far more commas and semicolons in their work than modern writers do. Also, punctuation sometimes varies depending on country or context. British and American writers follow different rulesand even use different namesfor some punctuation marks. Scientists customs differ from historians, and business has its own traditions.