Whenever I discuss writing on this blog, I
always prefer to cite something—a book, a blog post, a magazine article—to give
the information validity. After all, I’m not a published author, and until I
am, anything I say is easily dismissible.
However, one thing I do know is grammar.
I’m the kind of person who, when friends wrote me notes in junior high, would
correct the writing with a red pen and hand the note back (needless to say I
got a lot fewer notes this way). I’m the kind of person who knew how to
Reed-Kellogg diagram a sentence by the age of seven (big thank you to my
parents for wringing me through private school, where morning drills included
reciting all prepositions and auxiliary verbs in alphabetical order). I’m the
kind of person who studied editing in college and enjoyed it.
That being said, today I want to call out
what I consider to be the five most misused punctuation marks in American
English—the marks I tend to fix the most when a new document arrives at my
desk.
The
Apostrophe
Apostrophes are used to show one of two
things: ownership or omission.
Mary
Sue’s dog can’t ride a bike.
I frequently catch apostrophes trying to
hide amidst words that are merely plural. These sorts of things make Lynne
Truss cry.
Being pro-Chicago, I always add the “s” to
a word that already ends in it.
Joe Nicholes’s
house
The
waitress’s apron
However, AP doesn’t use the extra “s”. Sad,
I know.
The
Hyphen
The hyphen is not an em dash. If I could
drill one thing into the minds of mankind, it would be this. The hyphen is
not an em dash. (More on that later.)
Hyphens connect two words acting as a
compound, unless one of those words is an adverb.
Chocolate-covered
raisins
Thirty-five
soldiers
Deliciously
sweet cookie
Note that, unless it’s really aesthetically
appealing, the second word in a hyphenated phrase is not capitalized unless
it’s a proper noun.
A New
Study in Enterprise-class Reliability
Branching
Out: Enrich Your Life with Reed-Kellogg Diagrams
These are the two hyphen rules I see broken
the most. To learn more about hyphens, buy a copy of the Chicago Manual of
Style check out this
site.
The
Em Dash
Otherwise known as the most beautiful
punctuation ever invented.
Two wrongs may not make a right, but two
hyphens can make an em dash. When writing in Microsoft Word, just type “--” for an em dash and Word will convert it for you.* The Mac shortcut for an em dash is shift+option+minus key; for PC it's alt+0151.
Em dashes are the magical things that can
replace just about any intermediary punctuation mark. Commas, semicolons,
colons, parentheses . . . it’s a beautiful thing.
Mike
couldn’t believe so many animals—parakeets, lions, bears, fish—could fit into
one backpack.
Sam
ate bananas every night for dinner—she had grown paranoid after learning of her
potassium deficiency.
“What
I mean to say—if you would only—oh, forget about it.”
I repeat, a hyphen is not an em dash,
and em dashes don’t have spaces around them. They’re friendly marks and like to
cuddle close with their word-friends.
The
En Dash
The en dash is the most forgotten
punctuation mark. En dashes are used to show a range in numbers.
12–45
donuts
1998–2011
En dashes can be made on a Mac by hitting
command+subtraction symbol (on the 10-key), or on a PC by hitting alt+0150.
(But let’s be honest, if you use a hyphen
in place of an en dash, only the most anal of grammarians will notice.)
Single
Quotation Marks
When I was younger, I thought single
quotation marks (‘) indicated thought, as you can tell if you read any of my
early fanfiction (which I hope you never find!). Single quotation marks are actually
used to show dialogue within dialogue.
“But
then he said, ‘Your mom’s a goat!’ and ran away laughing.”
Bonus
Mark: The Colon
The one thing I want to say about the colon
is not to use it after verbs or prepositions (UNLESS the verb or preposition ends an independent clause. Though you shouldn't be ending those with prepositions anyway). Dumb rule, I agree, but it’s
there.
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*You may notice a plethora of “--"
throughout my blog posts. Those are the posts I draft directly in Blogger,
which unfortunately does not have em-dash–conversion abilities.