Questions tagged [punctuation]
This tag is for questions about punctuation. This encompasses marks such as the period/full stop, comma, dash, and parentheses, used to separate structural units and perform other roles that clarify the meaning. USE THE 'SYMBOLS' tag for currency symbols, accents and so forth.
3,040 questions
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Best instructions on handling commas [closed]
How to best know when you need to insert a comma. I always have issues understanding when to add a comma.
Thank you.
2
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2
answers
136
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Use of semicolon followed by conjunction: standard English punctuation?
I recognize my query nearly duplicates this question from 9 years back, but since usage evolves apace and because the below hurts my ear while my supervisor insists the sentence sounds as sweet as ...
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In APA style, is “i.e.” always needed to express “that is” in a parenthetical material, or can it be omitted sometimes?
It can be unclear when “i.e.” needs to be used in parenthetical material in an APA style paper and when it can be left out. For example, does the parenthetical material in the examples below require “...
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1
answer
51
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Do you place quotations marks around a term after the word “call” in APA style?
The 7th edition of the APA Style manual says to use quotation marks “to refer to a letter, word, phrase, or sentence as a linguistic example or as itself” (p. 157). Here are examples from APA: https://...
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Will there be a comma after the word, "called" in the following case? [duplicate]
I was posting a puzzle on my instagram page and I am supposed to write where I got the puzzle from.
I wrote it like this:
The puzzle above was taken from a facebook page called, "Fun Logic and ...
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0
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13
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How to follow a quoted question with a comma [migrated]
Which of these is correct?
Some questions, like "what is one plus one" or "what is two plus two," can be easily answered.
Some questions, like "what is one plus one?" or ...
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1
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64
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Modern usage of colon in tech writing / WEB is broken, can I fix it with dash? [closed]
Colon's usage is for lists and explanations.
Tech publishing often requires to present excerpts in a form:
Something, for example:
command /arg1 -arg2
Substituting and simplifying we get:
E = ...
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3
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"Is" followed by a comma
Is there a pause after is that requires a comma in the following sentence?
First of all, it’s important to know what the flu vaccine is(,) to be able to decide if we really need it.
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5
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What punctuation do I use for two back-to-back quotes from different sources?
UPDATE: The answers/comments are focusing too much on the context/example, and not enough on the question*: I want to learn the proper punctuation for this scenario, not workarounds to avoid it. "...
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15
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Punctuation in reporting habitual speech [duplicate]
How would you punctuate:
Gran always said, everyone knows this.
Should I put quotation marks round 'everyone knows this'? But it's reported rather than direct speech. I feel like a comma would be good ...
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2
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70
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Comma usage in a series containing an element made of a pair connected by "and" [closed]
I would like to ask your help with the following test quetion:
Jenny Tung is an evolutionary anthropologist who studies the connections between genomics, health, and social experiences in different ...
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1
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65
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Question mark: exemplifying list after colon [duplicate]
What exact meaning of come/go is used in examples such as:
His words came flooding back to me.
All her worries came spilling out
A large branch came/went crashing down / to the ground.
Where should ...
- 4,151
3
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1
answer
397
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Was the rule around apostrophe after s different before? [duplicate]
I was watching the 1978 version of Watership Down and intrigue by the subtitle which showed "Richard Adams's". Assuming that this wasn't an error because it went into production and was ...
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115
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How do you hyphenate a prenominal compound containing "most" (e.g., "the most experienced debater")?
I have a simple question, but someone (not I!) has misplaced my copy of CMS.
How do you hyphenate a prenominal compound containing "most"? For example:
the most experienced debater
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1
answer
48
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Hyphenate attributive measuring phrases: '-old'
Singular forms are used as modifiers before nouns in plural measuring expressions:
five-pound note
three-mile walk
four-foot deep hole
six-foot tall man
twenty-two-month-old baby
80-plus-year-old ...
- 4,151
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1
answer
66
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Interrogative inside a question
How should an interrogative lexical unit be cited inside a question? As in
Have you ever heard the idiom (how d'you) like them apples??
- 4,151
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3
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Should I use a comma or dash in this sentence?
All member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or
NATO—including Iceland, which joined in 1949; Hungary, which joined in
1999; and Bulgaria, which joined in _____ are committed to NATO’...
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1
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114
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Question/interrogation marks in exclamations
According to Swan's Practical,
Exclamations often have the form of negative questions:
Isn’t it cold ?
Hasn’t she got lovely eyes ?
In spoken AmE, exclamations often have the same form as ordinary
(...
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4
answers
123
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Is this a dialogue tag or separate sentence?
'Ron?' he hears her quavering voice from the bedroom.
Is the 'he' meant to be capitalised?
My friends think that it's fine lower-case and I'm wondering what they're smoking.
I thought it is a ...
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107
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Is it a comma splice or a noun phrase? [duplicate]
The birth date of the stables is anyone's guess, but they're a tumbledown affair, their state perhaps a nod to lately decaying fortunes.
I found this from All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter.
I ...
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1
answer
197
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Leading zeros and punctuation in American date format [closed]
Americans write the month first because I know. Today is a beautiful date—05/05/2025. Would that be the proper way? In my language, I’d write 5.5.2025, and that’s how some style guides recommend (e.g. ...
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109
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Should I use leading zeros and a colon in American English?
I know it’s a matter of style, but I’d like to know the common one.
In the 12-hour system, I know it’s not recommended to use leading zeros, but I’m not sure about the punctuation. 4:00, 4.00, just 4? ...
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0
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60
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What differences are between lexical hyphens and syntactic hyphens?
It is written in CaGEL that
8.2.2 Hard and long hyphens
Among the hard hyphens we can distinguish (though not always sharply) between those
that are lexical and those that are syntactic. The lexical ...
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156
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Syllable breaking C-le rule regarding words ending in 'ffle'
I apologise if this has been posted under another category, but I have searched syllables and did not see anything concerning this topic.
My issue is concerning syllable breaking of words ending in '...
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2
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149
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The rest of the topic, we’ll look at (it) next week
The rest of the topic we’ll look at next week.
The rest of the topic , we’ll look at (it) next week.
Is it optional in the version with a comma?
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2
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103
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"She succeeded, but at great personal cost." Understanding the comma in such sentences
In an academic paper I wrote recently, an editor removed a comma from a sentence in a way which sounds "wrong to my ear" as a native English speaker. However, I don't know of any universal ...
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1
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95
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Does this sentence feel empty? Can I improve it [closed]
Sentence is:
They can't wait to see their friend, brother, son, reborn.
The sentence feels lacking but I can't tell what. Am I over thinking or can it be improved on?
Friend, brother, son is how he'...
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100
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When are "whereas" "although" and "though" used as adverbs?
The words "whereas", "although" and "though" can generally be treated as subordinating conjunctions introducing a dependent clause.
An example of the usage of one of ...
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3
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398
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Why is a comma needed in front of "whereas"?
As far as I understand, the word "whereas" is a subordinating conjunction of concession.
The punctuation rule for subordinating conjunctions in general states that if they are used to ...
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0
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19
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Quotation marks for single-word examples [duplicate]
I can't find guidelines or even a pattern of common usage for punctuation around the definition of a word within paragraph text. For example:
The word 'rubric' comes from the Latin word ruber, ...
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1
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76
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Bare infinitives between quotation marks
Deprecate: its traditional meaning is "express condemnation of," but it has taken on the additional sense of "depreciate,
belittle, disparage" in "self-deprecate".
...
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209
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Abbreviating words ending with t such as department, compartment
Is it incorrect to write dept., deptt. or compt. in British English? Should these words be written as dept and compt?
In other words, is it incorrect to put a period/full stop at the end of the ...
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1
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111
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Spelling a word out in writing, would you use commas between each letter?
When I write about someone spelling a word out in writing, should I use commas between each letter?
Example:
"The teacher wrote the letters W, O, R, D on the blackboard."
or:
"The ...
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3
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Why is it that we use a comma before tag questions instead of a semicolon?
Am I not?
This seems to me to be an independent clause.
I am helpful.
Much the same, this seems to be independent.
So would it not be more proper to use a semicolon when joining these two?
I am ...
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1
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59
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Do we add punctuation after a book title with punctuation? [duplicate]
I've seen lots of questions about putting punctuation in quotes or not.
But I couldn't quite see which is correct here:
I just finished reading Willa Cather's O Pioneers!. (with period)
I just ...
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1
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93
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Putting a comma before the second quotation mark if quote is followed by a subordinate clause?
Normally, if in a complex sentence the subordinate clause goes behind the main clause, the
subordinating conjunction is not preceeded by a comma.
An example sentence for this is, with if being the ...
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1
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78
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What is the difference between the lines of the sonnet? [closed]
What is the difference between two sentences/lines of a sonnet in their meaning, please? They have a different punctuation, which shows a different state of emotions, but is the core/idea the same?
...
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0
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Comma or period at the end of a quote if there is a period in the written original AND an added clause follows after the quote [duplicate]
If I copy a written original into quotation marks, and the original ends in a period, should I place a comma or a period before the final quotation mark if the sentence runs on because of an own added ...
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0
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28
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What punctuation to connect a sentence to an elaborating fragment? [duplicate]
Example A (em dash):
What becomes of us when we discover that these questions, which have plagued us for so long, have only ineffectual answers — answers that change nothing, give way to nothing, and ...
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246
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Origin and reasoning behind "double periods" in between sentences in causal contexts
I (Gen Z) see some people, mainly Gen-Xers and older, using double periods in between sentences, mainly in casual contexts. For example:
a comment on a Facebook post: I was trying to find that.. is ...
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4
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Is "double apostrophe" a millennial or post-millennial innovation for the name of the double-quote character "?
I recently started contributing to an open source project that is actually a grammar / usage / style checker. I'm a Gen X language nerd and I think the key people in the project are much younger than ...
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1
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188
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Lower case or upper case in speech when interrupted by an action
"We must look everywhere," he said, turned around and then added,
"Let's start here."
Should the last sentence (Let's start here) start with lower case or upper case? Since the ...
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0
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"Yesterday and today's" Correct or Incorrect? [duplicate]
Is the sentence "Yesterday and today's events?" grammatically correct? I know that "Yesterday's and today's events" is preferred, but is the first version still correct?
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The purpose of a semicolon in a dictionary definition [duplicate]
Does the semicolon in a definition connecting the independent clauses indicate that there are two separate definitions or simply two parts of a singular definition?
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1
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151
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Does a parenthesized "and" clause make a subject plural?
Which of the following is correct:
"Wheat (and thus wheat products, such as bread) is a good source of fibre."
or
"Wheat (and thus wheat products, such as bread) are good sources of ...
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25
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Structure and punctuation of sentence with two clauses joined by "and" where the first ends with a plural noun phrase using "and" [duplicate]
I saw this sentence while looking for train schedules:
The fare per zone is $1.50 for adults (ages 19-64), youth (ages 0-18) and seniors (ages 65+) travel fare-free with no ticket needed.
If the ...
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1
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135
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Any usage for using hyphen and slash in the same word combination?
I saw "move-in/out" and "setup/tear down" in an OTIS manual, and wonder which punctuation shall override the other in such case.
In the 1st combination, it's clearly the shortened ...
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1
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125
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Modifying dashes within quotations
If I'm quoting a sentence that uses a different type of dash than the one I prefer, is it permissible to modify the dashes within the quoted sentence to make them consistent with my preference?
Let us ...
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1
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752
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Which Punctuation Best Introduces an Example in Formal Writing: Comma, Colon, or Hyphen?
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tracks comparative price list data for its thirty-eight member countries. According to this data, in July 2021, a “basket” of goods ...
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2
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Is a period used after a ligature of an abbreviation if its constituent characters, separated, would be punctuated in that manner? [closed]
That question title is fairly nondescript, but it has to be to encompass the undermentioned example. Specifically, consider how № (Numero) replaces "No." In this situation, should I place a ...
