Confessions from an over-punctuator

I have an admission to make.

I’m a bit crap at punctuation.

Sometimes, if I’m unsure, I’ll pop a comma in just to be safe. Commas are a bit like my grammatical security blanket.

My name is Belinda and I’m an over-punctuator.

If you look carefully, you’ll notice that this post doesn’t include an abundance of commas and misused punctuation. That’s because I have an amazing proofreader who diligently moves my commas from where they shouldn’t be to where they should.

To be honest, I don’t care where the commas go. Language evolves and I believe that communication is about being understood. If you understand me, who cares where the comma is?

I get my work proofread because I don’t want to deal with grammar Nazis telling me that, as a copywriter, I should be an expert. I get all my clients’ work proofread because their credibility isn’t something to be trifled with.

As part of my confession, I wanted to reveal some other punctuation I usually get wrong. Hopefully, I’m not alone!

Let’s start with commas

Commas are handy little buggers; they really are. I call them ‘The Pause-Makers’ and add them in whenever I take a breath while reading. I think my problem is that I take too many breaths.

You use commas in lists, and to separate adjectives. You would use a comma to join two simple sentences to create a longer sentence – just like the last sentence.

You also use a comma when you’re adding some additional, but non-essential, information. See what I did there?

And to finish on some easy ones, you pop in a comma just before a quotation, to separate numbers, and before ‘etc.’ If you’re in the US, you’d also use commas in written dates.

See what I mean? Very handy and not offensive at all, which is probably why I feel the need to sprinkle them generously.

Single vs double quotation marks

I have another admission. Sometimes I choose punctuation because it looks neater, not because it’s correct, and this is one of those instances. But if you don’t want to make your proofreader scream, here is the rule.

Roll out double quotation marks (“…..”) when you’re using the exact words someone else used. Exact words. If you’re just paraphrasing, you can skip the punctuation.

Single quotation marks (‘….’) are used in place of doubles in the US, around titles or when you’re sarcastically or ironically emphasising a word in a sentence. You can also use single quotation marks for quotes within quotes, so your eyes don’t go crazy.

Actually, quotation marks are kinda easy now I think about it.

Semicolons vs Colons

Argh. This one gets me every time. I mean, I (think I) actually know the rule but that doesn’t mean I don’t stop writing and Google it.

Semicolons add a little spice and variety to your punctuation, letting you join two distinct sentences, like housemates in a share house. If your two housemates, I mean phrases, don’t make sense as sentences, you can’t use a semicolon. You also use a semicolon for a supporting clause; for example, when you haven’t quite finished.

That’s not the only scenario for which you can use a semicolon and, as usual, The Oatmeal explains it best with examples to boot.

A colon is used to introduce a series of things or to join sentences that you wouldn’t join with ‘and’ or other. E.g. “He lived by a single rule: he was honest.” You can also use a colon thus. She said: “I wish I had more time.”

The dash vs the hyphen

It’s a bit of a battle of the punctuation, isn’t it? I love using hyphens, or do I use dashes? I never really know.

Firstly, what’s the difference? They look different and they serve different purposes:

A hyphen looks like this: –
An en looks like this: –
An em looks like this: —

A hyphen is a short dash often used to connect ‘concept’ words like ‘semi-retired’ or ‘middle-rank’ when you use them as adjectives and they wouldn’t make sense separately.

An en is a printer’s measure and so named because it’s the distance between the two legs of the letter ‘n’.

The en dash is used to show ranges or create connections between elements, such as in:

they took a north–south route
the parent–child bond
1–15 July
March–September

But when elements are different types, they use a space, like in 1 June – 30 July.

Informally, copywriters often use an en dash to separate a clause within a sentence – like this – or to act as a kind of big breath. This gives the statement room to breathe or make an impact, and it makes the reader slow down and pay attention to it.

The em (dash)—also a printer’s measure and favoured by the Americans—​usually doesn’t have a space either side and is as long as the distance between the outer legs of an ‘m’. It’s used to separate sections within a sentence—​like an interjection or clarification, similar to how you can use parentheses within a sentence—​and you won’t see it often in Australian or British English.

Who knew a few little marks could be so complicated?

So now that I’ve bared my soul a little I’d love to know what are the tricky corners in your grammatical brain space?

Belinda

P.S. Yes, I am aware of the irony of writing a post about punctuation when it’s my sore spot. If you feel the need to tear it apart – from a punctuation point of view – please don’t. It’s tiresome. And you might hurt my proofreader’s feelings.