The Turner Ink blog contains rants, bloopers, observations and opinions. It also has handy tips on grammar and punctuation such as colons: semicolons; and full stops. As well as some very useful ‘how tos’. Feel free to leave comments. Be nice though.
Exclamation marks have only one use: at the end of a sentence to show a strong emotion:
That’s great!
What a stunning view!
Help!
However, in copywriting and business writing the exclamation mark should be used sparingly, if at all, as it can make your writing sound, well, a bit giddy and breathless. Woo-hoo! Gasp!
Of course the multi exclamation mark should never be used. Apart from:
Pay my invoice!!!!!!!!!!! (Yeah, you know who you are!)
Tags: exclamation marks
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To finish off the year we’re looking at the full stop. Ha ha ha. I hear you chortle. If there’s one bit of punctuation I know how to use it’s the full stop. Aaaah. That may be the case but do you know when not to use it? Ok, here we go eyes down.
Use a full stop:
At the end of complete sentence.
Between words when you’re making a dramatic point: Like. Oh. My. God.
After abbreviations: Ibid. e.g. No.7.
Inside a bracket if it’s a complete sentence: She wore a red dress. (The other girl wore a blue one.)
Outside a bracket if the sentence is incomplete: She wore a red dress (and the other girl wore a blue one).
Outside quotation marks if the full stop is not part of the quote: Shakespeare wrote “now is the winter of our discontent”. (This differs from Americans who always put a full stop inside the quote marks, whether it belongs or not. Grrrrr.)
Don’t use a full stop:
When there’s another punctuation mark there already: Hooray! Huh?
For abbreviations like Dr, Mr or St
For acronyms or abbreviations if the word is well known: BBC, NATO, UK
In titles, headings or sub-headings.
If a title or abbreviation has its own punctuation: It was in a report by Which?
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Using the colon correctly will amaze your friends and impress your colleagues. Hey, it may even get you a promotion.
The colon has two main uses:
1. It lets you know that what follows is an explanation or an elaboration of what came before
You need to know one thing about English cricket: we can’t bat to save our lives.
I’ll tell you what I’m going to do to get fit: go to the gym every day.
2. It introduces a list
Searching down the back of the sofa I found a load of treasures: two sweets, 55p, a biro lid, and the remote control.
You need to bring three things to the meeting: a note pad, a pen, and a sense of humour.
Remember that the words before the colon must form a complete sentence. Put a full stop instead of a colon to check the sentence can stand alone.
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Not sure when to use a question mark? Confused as to where it should go? Probably not as it’s one of the easiest bits of punctuation to get right. But here’s a quick recap.
Do use a question mark
At the end of a sentence with a direct question: ‘is kick-off at 7.45pm tonight?’
In brackets when you’re not sure of a fact: ‘he was born in 1588 (?) in London.’
Don’t use a question mark
At the end of an indirect question: ‘the teacher asked the class what they were doing.’
When it’s a polite request: ‘would everyone without the right form please move to the front.’
With other punctuation: ‘he said what?!’
More than once: ‘want to get fit for the summer?????’
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So what’s the rule with quotation marks aka inverted commas? Single or double? Well, the good news is: there is no rule. Hooray. If you’re quoting direct speech, just pick one or the other and be consistent. If you quote within a quote use the inverted commas that you haven’t already used.
He said “we deserved to win the game although Ferguson told us we ‘were lucky’”.
Or, he said ‘we deserved to win the game although Ferguson told us we “were lucky”‘.
Tags: inverted commas, speech marks
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