Category Archives: punctuation

It’s a Punctuation Celebration!

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For some people, the holiday season starts with Halloween; for others, it’s Thanksgiving—or the day after—and for a festive few, the party never stops. But for language lovers, it’s National Punctuation Day, “a light-hearted opportunity to teach good punctuation” from founder and former newspaper reporter Jeff Rubin, aka Punctuation Man. (Despite his journalistic background, he endorses the serial comma.)

The seventh-annual punctuation celebration features a haiku contest (e.g., “Punctuation marks: / Commas, colons, periods / That give words meaning”). Hundreds have already entered, and winners will receive—what else?—punctuation prizes. (Visit the website for submission guidelines and other ways to participate.)

The holiday has a punctuation publication, The Exclamation Point, with book recommendations, literacy news from around the world, and articles about Punctuation Playtime, a “program that teaches elementary school students punctuation in a fun and engaging way” from Rubin and his wife, Norma.

There are also the requisite T-shirts, cards, and mugs, but of course the best way to celebrate is to learn the rules of proper punctuation. It’s easier than it sounds, and the National Punctuation Day website has plenty of products and resources to help you do so.

The Lowly Semicolon

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The Oatmeal, or the man behind The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman, has done it again. First, he hilariously explained how to use an apostrophe, and now he has come to the defense—and perhaps rescue—of the much maligned semicolon, which he deems “the most feared punctuation on earth.” But, as “How to Use a Semicolon” literally illustrates with colorful cartoon gorillas and dinosaurs, there’s really nothing to fear about this punctuation mark.

It’s most commonly used to join two independent clauses. The term “independent clause” probably isn’t helping the semicolon’s case; it’s just a fancy way of saying “complete sentence.” We usually separate sentences with a period, but when they’re closely related (as in the previous sentence), the semicolon shows this connection.

If you weren’t aware the mark had been placed on the endangered punctuation list, here’s a brief history of the semicolon’s demise. Although modern technology has played a role (blame the costly telegraphs of the mid-1800s), it seems most people want to do away with the mark simply because they don’t know how to use it. Hopefully, this Oatmeal comic will help. Emoticons can’t do it alone. ;)

Thanks to both Wendy and Scott for sending me this link.

Dear BPE: Designs on the Dash

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Dear Blue Pencil,Can you please address the “em” vs. “en” dash? This has become quite a conversation in the design world. Not sure how you’d approach it as a writer/copy editor. In many cases, designers have begun using an en rather than an em … or they manually shorten the em and add a half space around it. Do you have an opinion?

Karen

Oh dear. Do away with the em dash? Putting my personal affection for the mark aside, I’m hesitant to sub one form of punctuation for another. After all, you wouldn’t just swap out commas for colons. Although the em and en are both dashes, they have different meanings.

The en is primarily used in place of “to” (the 2010–2011 school year), but the lovely em dash—which The Chicago Manual of Style describes as “the most commonly used and most versatile of the dashes”—has many functions. It’s most often used to set off explanatory information, as in the previous sentence, or to indicate a break in thought.

To let you know where I’m coming from, here’s what Chicago has to say about dashes: “Hyphens and the various dashes all have their specific appearance and uses. The hyphen, the en dash, and the em dash are the most commonly used and must be typeset correctly; an en dash appearing where a hyphen is called for bespeaks editorial or typographic confusion.”

I assume they would apply the same logic to replacing an em dash with an en dash. Since it seems it’s the length of the em dash you object to, I suppose shortening it—while retaining its meaning—is a good compromise (but you should know there are 2-em and 3-em dashes). Visually, I like the way the em dash looks because it illustrates the separation that’s intended.

When it comes to punctuation, I’m more concerned about function than form, which is probably the opposite of how you feel. But I’m sure we have the same end goal in mind: readability. Maybe it would help if designers read The Elements of Style and editors read The Elements of Typographic Style?