25/2/2016 Punctuation and capital letters in English PUNCTUATION IN ENGLISH by Viv Quarry (www.vivquarry.com) Punctuation exists to order writing into logical blocks, and to enable a person to read a written text out loud with the appropriate stress, intonation and pauses 1. Here are the names of some of the different punctuation marks in English = full stop (period) , = comma ' = apostrophe = hyphen ! = exclamation mark ? = question mark ; = semicolon : = colon ( ) = (in) brackets (in parentheses) [ ] = square brackets { } = curly brackets — = dash / = slash \ = backslash & = ampersand * = asterisk ‘Hi!’ = single quotation marks (single quotes) "Hi!" = double quotation marks (double quotes) 'Je ne sais quoi' = inverted commas _ = underscore # = hash ¶ = paragraph mark Apostrophes are used to show contractions and possession e.g. I'm John's sister Hyphens are sometimes used after prefixes and between most compound adjectives and some compound nouns Semicolons are often used instead of full stops where sentences are grammatically independent but the meaning is closely connected e.g. Some people work best in the mornings; others do better in the evenings They can also be used to separate items (especially of phrases) in a list Colons can be used before explanations, lists, to introduce quotations and in titles to separate a main heading from a subdivision e.g. Punctuation: colon A dash is often used in informal writing to add afterthoughts or instead of colons and semicolons e.g. "There are three things I can never remember — names, faces, and I've forgotten the other!" Inverted commas, which sometimes have the same form as single quotes, are often used when we talk about a word, or when we use it in an unusual way. They are also used when using foreign words e.g. His attitude was a ‘wall’ between him and his friends. or "How do you say 'Je ne sais quoi' in English?" Both single and double quotation marks can be used to quote speech but the mark used for an apostrophe will change accordingly e.g. “HIs attitude was a 'wall',” she said. or 'His attitude was a "wall",' she said For a quotation within a quotation, we use the kind of marks that we are not using for the main quotation e.g. "Good heavens," thought Jane. "What shall I do if he says 'Yes' to me?" 2. Numerical punctuation + = plus = minus (subtracted from) x = times (multiplied by) ÷ = divided by = = equals > = greater than