Punctuation marks

Ratna Raman

Written communication is most effective when short sentences are used.   Short sentences of nine or ten words are usually the suggested norm.  Human writing captures experience in a free-flowing manner and often refuses to be structured into ten word sentences.  Punctuation marks, such as the full stop, the exclamation mark and the question mark,(terminal marks),  found at the end of sentences provide necessary conclusions to single sentences. The comma, the colon, the semicolon, the brackets and the hyphen were invented to break down longer sentences and make written structures reader-friendly.  

The metaphor of driving is particularly handy to understand how language works. The individual skill of writing can be equated to the driving of a car. The use of the full-stop is like quick pressure on the brakes. Both the sentence and the car slow down or stop. This could indicate a pause at the red-lights or a long halt at the end of one's destination. The exclamation mark speeds things up, so employing it parallels stepping on the accelerator. The question mark is rather like asking for directions.

Using brackets within a sentence is like driving on a slip road (avoiding traffic on the main road) while still being connected to the main road.  Brackets provide additional information in subsets alongside the main narrative.  The hyphen(-) joins  different  words to create new meanings (user-friendly, seventy-five, long-term).  Hyphenated words are also compound words (mother-in-law, pick-me-up, editor-in-chief) 

 Using the ‘colon’ is like being out a long journey and halting for refuelling or supplies before proceeding. The colon, symbolised by two dots one above the other (:) is of Latin (limb) and Greek (large intestine, connecting  the cecum  to the rectum) origin. Colons mark off major divisions in a sentence, and are often used to introduce quotations, or dialogue.  They also separate the hours and   minutes (10:32 a.m.) when recording time.

The semi colon is used to communicate two different ideas, one often springing out of the previous, or perhaps quite different. Using the semi-colon is like changing lanes while driving; unavoidable, in case  a right turn  must be made from the extreme left of the road: “I love hot milk at all times; my children insist upon cold milk.” The semi colon can be replaced by conjunctions such as, and; or; but; while; making for tidier sentences. (“I love hot milk but my children don’t”). Semicolons easily replace serial commas.

This brings us to the Oxford comma.  In current usage, the older practice of retaining the comma   preceding ‘and’ has been done away with. The comma becomes superfluous in the presence of the conjunction. Oxford defends its usage famously in the sentence:   “I love my parents, Humpty Dumpty, and Lady Gaga.   The argument for the Oxford comma here is that readers of the above sentence would assume that Humpty Dumpty and Lady Gaga were the names of beloved parents, if the comma was not placed after Dumpty.  

Language records culture, often circumventing minimal grammar rules to incorporate new meaning.   Parents, Humpty Dumpty (nursery jingle character) and Lady Gaga (pop star with bizarre clothing) are disparate identities from three different realms   ‘loved’ by an adolescent. Wherever a single verb becomes the fulcrum for two or more nouns, we have a new figure of speech called the ‘zeugma’ (bonding, joining, Greek). “She broke his heart and his windscreen” is another example of zeugma, (both heart and windscreen correspond to ‘broke’).  Alexander Pope’s mock-epic, “The Rape of The Lock,” says that powerful Queen Anna: "Dost sometimes Counsel take — and sometimes Tea” (‘take’ governs both counsel and tea).   The zeugma, in this instance, makes short work of the Oxford comma and collective anxiety over its relevance!