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also called the period, it is chiefly used to mark the end of a sentence expressing a statement. Here are some examples:

Terry Pratchett's latest book is not yet out in paperback.

I asked her whether she could tell me the way to Brighton.

Chinese, uniquely among the world's languages, is written in a logographic script.

The British and the Irish drive on the left; all other Europeans drive on the right.

Summary
• Put a full stop at the end of a complete statement.
• Do not connect two statements with a comma.

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They are called the listing comma, the joining comma, the gapping comma and bracketing commas. Each use has its own rules, but note that a comma is never preceded by a white space and always followed by a white space.

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A question mark (?)  is placed at the end of a sentence which is a direct question. Here are some examples:

What is the capital of Wales?

Does anyone have a pen I can borrow?

Who told you that?

In which country did coffee originate?

Summary:

• Use a question mark at the end of a direct question.
• Do not use a question mark at the end of an indirect question.
• Use an internal question mark to show that something is uncertain.

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known informally as a bang or a shriek, is used at the end of a sentence or a short phrase which expresses very strong feeling. Here are some examples:

What a lovely view you have here!

That's fantastic!

Johnny, don't touch that!

Help!

Good heavens!

Aaarrgh!

Summary:
* Don't use an exclamation mark unless it's absolutely
necessary.
* Use an exclamation mark after an exclamation, especially after one beginning with what or how.

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Note that a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark is never preceded by a white space. Things like the following
are wrong:

How well has Darwin's theory stood up?

A sentence-final punctuation mark is always written next to
the last word of the sentence.
.

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A fragment is a word or a phrase which stands by itself but which does not make up a complete sentence. Fragments are very common in ordinary speech, in advertisements and even in newspapers. They may be used very sparingly in formal
writing; when used, they should be followed by a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark, as appropriate:

Will the Star Wars project ever be resumed? Probably not.

We need to encourage investment in manufacturing. But how?

Can England beat Australia? Absolutely!

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The colon is used to indicate that what follows it is an explanation or elaboration of what precedes it. That is, having introduced some topic in more general terms, you can use a colon and go on to explain that same topic in more specific terms.
The colon is never preceded by a white space; it is always followed by a single white space in normal use, and it is never, never, never
followed by a hyphen or a dash.
A colon is not normally followed by a capital letter in British usage, though American usage often prefers to use a capital. Here are some examples:

Africa is facing a terrifying problem: perpetual drought. [Explains what the problem is.]

The situation is clear: if you have unprotected sex with a stranger, you risk    AIDS.[Explains what the clear situation is.

She was sure of one thing: she was not going to be a housewife. [Identifies the one thing she was sure of]

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The semicolon (;) has only one major use. It is used to join
two complete sentences into a single written sentence when
all of the following conditions are met:
1. The two sentences are felt to be too closely related to
be separated by a full stop;
2. There is no connecting word which would require a
comma, such as and or but;
3. The special conditions requiring a colon are absent.
Here is a famous example:

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

A semicolon can always, in principle, be replaced either by a
full stop (yielding two separate sentences) or by the word and
(possibly preceded by a joining comma). Thus Dickens might
have written:

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times, or

It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.

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• Use a colon to separate a general statement from following
specifics.
• Use a semicolon to connect two complete sentences not
joined by and, or. but, yet or while.

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is used in writing contractions - that is, shortened forms of words from which one or more letters have been omitted.
Here are some of the commonest examples, with their uncontracted equivalents:

it's it is or it has

we'll we will or we shall

they've they have

Note in each case that the apostrophe appears precisely in the
position of the omitted letters: we write can't, not * ca'nt, and
aren't, not * are'nt. Note also that the irregular contraction
won't takes its apostrophe between the n and the t, just like
all other contractions involving not. And note also that she'd've has two apostrophes, because material has been omitted from two positions.

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The hyphen (-) is the small bar found on every keyboard. It is used to show that what it is attached to does not make up a complete word by itself. The hyphen must never be used with white spaces at both ends, though in some uses it may have a white space at one end.
A hyphen is used to indicate that a long word has been broken off at the end of a line:

We were dismayed at having to listen to such incon-sequential remarks.

The hyphen is also used in writing compound words which, without the hyphen, would be ambiguous, hard to read or overly long.

British usage generally favours rather more hyphens here than
does American usage.

The hyphen is regularly used in writing so-called 'doublebarrelled' names:

Jose-Maria Olazabal,
Jean-Paul Gaultier,
Claude Levi-Strauss.

it is essential to hyphenate compound modifiers.

She kissed him good night.
She gave him a good-night kiss.
This essay is well thought out.
This is a well-thought-out essay.
Her son is ten years old.
She has a ten-year-old son.

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The dash (-) is the long horizontal bar, noticeably longer thana hyphen.
The dash has only one major use: a pair of dashes separates
a strong interruption from the rest of the sentence.

An honest politician - if such a creature exists - would never agree to such a plan.

The destruction of Guernica - and there is no doubt that the destruction was deliberate — horrified the world.

In the case in which the original sentence is never resumed after the interruption, only one dash is used:

John, do you suppose you could - oh, never mind; I'll do it.

This sort of broken sentence is only found in representations of conversation, such as you might find in a novel; it is never
appropriate in formal writing.

Finally, in the rare case in which a sentence is broken off abruptly without being completed, a single dash is also used:

General Sedgwick's last words to his worried staff were'Don't worry, boys; they couldn't hit an elephant att his dist—'.

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Capital letters are not really an aspect of punctuation, but itis convenient to deal with them here.

(a) The first word of a sentence, or of a fragment, begins with a capital letter:

The bumbling wizard Rincewind is Pratchett's most
popular character.

(b) The names of the days of the week, and of the months
of the year, are written with a capital letter:

Mozart was born on 27 January 1756.

However, the names of seasons are not written with a capital:

Like cricket, baseball is played in the summer.

Do not write * ... in the Summer.

(c) The names of languages are always written with a capital
letter.

Juliet speaks English, French, Italian and Portuguese.

(d) Words that express a connection with a particular place
must be capitalized when they have their literal meanings. So, for example, French must be capitalized when it means
'having to do with France':

The result of the French election is still in doubt.

(e) Words that identify nationalities or ethnic groups are capitalized:

The Basques and the Catalans spent decades struggling for
autonomy.

(f) Formerly, the words black and white, when applied to
human beings, were never capitalized. Nowadays, however,
many people prefer to capitalize them because they regard
these words as ethnic labels comparable to Chinese or Indian:

The Rodney King case infuriated many Black Americans.

(g) Proper names are always capitalized.

The study of language was revolutionized by Noam
Chomsky.

(h) The names of distinctive historical periods are capitalized:

London was a prosperous city during the Middle Ages.

(i) The names of festivals and holy days are capitalized:

We have long breaks at Christmas and Easter.

(j) Many religious terms are capitalized, including the names
of religions and of their followers, the names or titles of divine
beings, the titles of certain important figures, the names of
important events and the names of sacred books:

An atheist is a person who does not believe in God.

(k) In the title or name of a book, a play, a poem, a film, a
magazine, a newspaper or a piece of music, a capital letter is
used for the first word and for every significant word.

I was terrified by The Silence of the Lambs.

(I) The first word of a direct quotation, repeating someone
Capital Letters and Abbreviations
else's exact words, is always capitalized if the quotation is a
complete sentence:

Thomas Edison famously observed, 'Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.'

But there is no capital letter if the quotation is not a complete
sentence:
The Minister described the latest unemployment figures
as 'disappointing'.

(m) The brand names of manufacturers and their products
are capitalized:

Maxine has bought a second-hand Ford Escort.

(n) Roman numerals are usually capitalized:

King Alfonso XIII handed over power to General Primo
de Rivera.

The only common exception is that small roman numerals are used to number the pages of the front matter in books; look at almost any book.

(o) The pronoun / is always capitalized:

She thought I'd borrowed her keys, but I hadn't.

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Do not use an abbreviation that can easily be avoided.

• In an abbreviation, use full stops and capital letters in theconventional way.

• Do not forget to punctuate the rest of the sentence normally.

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The use of quotation marks, also called inverted commas, is very
slightly complicated by the fact that there are two types: single
quotes (") and double quotes (""). As a general rule, British
usage prefers single quotes for ordinary use, but double quotes
are also very common; American usage insists upon double
quotes. Usage in the rest of the world varies: double quotes
are preferred in Canada and Australia, and perhaps also in
New Zealand, while single quotes are perhaps more usual in
South Africa.

A pair of quotation marks encloses a direct quotation — that is, a repetition of someone's exact words.

President Kennedy famously exclaimed, 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'

When you cite a quotation that has another quotation inside. In this circumstance, the rule is to set off the internal quotation with the other type of quotation marks.

So, if you're using double quotes:

The Shadow Employment Secretary declared, "Describing the unemployment figures as 'disappointing' is an insult to the British people."

And if you're using single quotes:

The Shadow Employment Secretary declared, 'Describing the unemployment figures as
"disappointing" is an insult to the British people.'

• Put quotation marks (single or double) around the exact
words of a direct quotation.
• Inside a quotation, use a suspension to mark omitted
material and square brackets to mark inserted material.
• Use quotation marks to distance yourself from a word or
phrase or to show that you are using it ironically.
• Place quotation marks around a word or phrase which you
are talking about.

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Most commonly, italics are used for emphasis or contrast - that is, to draw attention to some particular part of a text.

The Battle of New Orleans was fought in January 1815,
two weeks after the peace treaty had been signed.

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Boldface letters are the extra-black ones - like these. They have only a few general uses.
First, they are used for chapter titles and section headings,
exactly as is done in this book.
Second, they are used for the captions to illustrations, tables
and graphs.
Third, they are sometimes used to provide very strong emphasis, as an alternative to italics. In this book I have used them in this way very frequently — probably too frequently:
A colon is never followed by a hyphen or a dash.
Finally, boldface is often used to introduce important new
terms.

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Small capitals are just what they sound like: THEY LOOK LIKE THIS. They have only one common use: certain abbreviations are commonly written in small capitals. In particular, the abbreviations BC and AD are usually so written:

Alexander the Great died in 323 BC.

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Parentheses (()), also called round brackets, always occur in pairs. They have one major use and one or two minor uses. Most commonly, a pair of parentheses is used to set off a strong or weak interruption, rather like a pair of dashes or a pair of bracketing commas. In the case of a strong interruption, very often it is possible to use either dashes or parentheses:

The destruction of Guernica - and there is no doubt that
the destruction was deliberate - horrified the world.

The destruction of Guernica (and there is no doubt that
the destruction was deliberate) horrified the world.

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Square brackets are used to set
off an interruption within a direct quotation; refer to that
chapter for details. Very occasionally square brackets are used for citing references;

# data[].attributes.body
The ellipsis (...), also called the suspension or omission marks,
has just two uses.
First, is used to show that some material has been omitted from the middle of a direct quotation.
Second, the ellipsis is used to show that a sentence has been left unfinished. Unlike the dash, which is used to show that an utterance has been broken off abruptly (recall the unfortunate General Sedgwick!), the suspension shows that the writer or speaker has simply 'tailed off' into silence, deliberately leaving something unsaid:

Colonel Garcia leered at the prisoner: 'We want those
names now. If we don't get them

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The slash (/), also called the oblique, the virgule, the stroke,
the solidus or the shilling mark, has several uses.
First, it is used to separate alternatives:

Each candidate must bring his/her identity card.

This style is particularly frequent in job advertisements:
The University of Saffron Walden wishes to appoint a lecturer/senior lecturer in media studies.
Second, the slash may be used to represent a period of time:

The 1994/95 football season was marred by frequent
scandals.

Third, the slash is used, especially in scientific writing, to represent the word per in units:

Light travels at 300,000 km/sec.

Fourth, the slash is used in writing fractions, as in % or 3/4;

in this use, it is often called the scratch.
Fifth, the slash is used in writing certain abbreviations.
Virtually the only one of these you will find outside of
specialist contexts is c/o for 'care of in addresses:
Write to me at Sylvia Keller, c/o Andrea Mason, 37 The
Oaks, Plumtree, East Sussex BN17 4GH.
Finally, slashes are used to separate lines of poetry when a
poem is written solid, instead of being set out line by line:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep/And nodding
by the fire, take down this book/And slowly read of the
soft look/Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
(W. B. Yeats)

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The compound numerals from twenty-one to ninety-nine are written with hyphens:

France is divided into ninety-six departments.

No additional hyphens are used in writing larger numbers.

Fractions are always written with hyphens:

Almost three-fourths of the earth's surface is water.

Important note: In British usage, a date is written daymonth-year, while American usage prefers month-day-year. Hence, Britons write 23 March, while Americans write March 23. This is a potentially serious problem when we use the
abbreviated style of writing dates often found in letters and
business documents: to a Briton, 5/7/84 means 5 July IQ84, while to an American it means May 7 1984.

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• Use a listing comma in a list wherever you could conceivably use the word and (or or) instead. Do not use a listing comma anywhere else.
• Put a listing comma before and or or only if this is necessary to make your meaning clea

We spent our evenings chatting in the cafes, watching the sun set over the harbour, stuffing ourselves with the local crabs and getting pleasantly sloshed on retsina

Lisa speaks French, Juliet speaks Italian and I speak
Spanish.

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The joining comma is only slightly different from the listing comma. It is used to join two complete sentences into a single sentence, and it must be followed by a suitable connecting word. The connecting words which can be used in this way are and, or, but, while and yet.

Billions of dollars have been hurled into the Star Wars projects, yet we appear to have nothing to show for this colossal expenditure.

A dropped goal counts three points in rugby union, while in rugby league it only counts one point.

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The gapping comma is very easy. We use a gapping comma to show that one or more words have been left out when the missing words would simply repeat the words already used earlier in the same sentence.

Some Norwegians wanted to base their national language on the speech of the capital city; others, on the speech of the rural countryside

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Bracketing commas (also called isolating commas) do a very
different job from the other three types. These are the most
frequently used type of comma, and they cause more problems
than the other types put together. The rule is this: a pair
of bracketing commas is used to mark offa weak interruption
of the sentence - that is, an interruption which does not disturb
the smooth flow of the sentence.

The Pakistanis, like the Australians before them, have exposed the shortcomings of the England batting order.

Rupert Brooke, who was killed in the war at the age of twenty-eight, was one of our finest poets.

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A listing comma can always be replaced by the word "and"or "or".

A joining comma must be followed by one of the connecting words "and, or, but, yet" or "while".

A gapping comma indicates that you have decided not to repeat some words which have already occurred in the sentence.

Bracketing commas always come in pairs, unless one of them would come at the beginning or the end of the sentence, and they always set off a weak interruption which could in principle be removed from the sentence.