Punctuation

Punctuation

–noun
1.
the practice or system of using certain conventional marks or characters in writing or printing in order to separate elements and make the meaning clear, as in ending a sentence or separating clauses.
2.
the act of punctuating.
3.
punctuation marks.

Whatever happened to punctuation? It must be hiding under a rock or something because I can't find it. I can easily forgive lack of punctuation in text messages, but even then it bothers me. I hate when I read a text message and it reads like one, long-winded sentence. (i.e. "i cant believe I saw Mike at the party he was so cute i mean hes way outta my league but still.) Notice the lack of punctuation in contractions, too. That's just damn lazy. However, youth today can't bother with punctuation. I should know. I am one.

I love reading stories and books online, but a lot of them neglect this handy tool which should be common sense to most. Usually, it's better than reading Myspace comments, but sometimes I'm surprised. Some mistakes are easily forgivable (we're not perfect), however, when you forget to put that little dot we're all familiar with at the end of your sentences, there's a problem.

And then we have superfluous punctuation. It's a little harder to find than no punctuation. However, it's still there, and one punctuation mark that is constantly abused is the ellipsis. A dear friend of mine, ellipsis, and I feel sad whenever I see it mistreated. People often believe a sentence deserves an ellipses even though it's a complete sentence. For example: "I will meet you at Barney's in five minutes..." It seems so unnatural. Unless the person is narcoleptic and is falling asleep at the end of the sentence, the period would do just fine.

The only time you need an ellipsis is when you have an incomplete thought. For instance: "If they find me..." This sets up a sense of anticipation. And another time to use an ellipsis is when the speaker is hesitating. Like this: "I...I don't think I can tell you." Of course, there are exceptions to these rules, especially in poetry where there is poetic license, but please, use ellipses at the bare minimum.

Ellipses aren't the only punctuation marks abused. Exclamation points are a big victim of maltreatment. As Terry Pratchett once wrote “Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.” One exclamation point is all that's needed. You can get your point across with that. "There's a dog!" is less grating on the nerves than "There's a dog!!!11!!one11eleven" If you're going to put various punctuation, at least put it right. When you're writing dialogue, you don't even need exclamation points if your tag says "he yelled" or "she shouted". It's just redundant.