Bringing punctuation to life (Part 2)

For many beginning writers, and some veterans as well, punctuation can be confusing. The scoring rules sometimes seem arcane, abstract, even random. But if we see punctuation as a form of traffic control: commands to stop, pause, look ahead, etc. – It is easy to master these necessary grammar rules. In an earlier excerpt, we explained how to use periods, commas, colons, and semicolons.

Separate words to combine ideas. People regularly coin new words by combining several words. Pasted with hyphens, these expressions often become single words. The word for the national pastime of the United States began as baseball, evolved into softball, and eventually took the modern form of baseball. The last example: email transformed into email and then into email.

Storyboards offer a great way to show how things relate to each other. Consider the following sentence: “East Coast liberals like Hillary Clinton differ from West Coast liberals like Jerry Brown.” We could say, “West Coast Liberals,” but that’s not quite so concise.

Of course, connecting too many things with hyphens can be silly. Thus: “The first-term African-American senator from the South Side of Chicago made his first White House bid in 2008.”

Use em dashes, like this one, to make asides. If you want to emphasize entire phrases or lists, use an em dash known as em dash. Look at this sentence:

The Chicago Cubs’ inability to win a World Series for 100 years, a period that saw nineteen different presidents, has caused angst among fans.

The em dash helps the author make an aside. The em dash tells the reader to pause, as if to say, “Hey, check this out.”

Critics say em-dash cheapens writing by encouraging a relaxed, informal style. Without a doubt, the excessive use of any tool can be annoying. When we overuse em-dash-as-here-it-distracts-and-annoys-the-reader. But in moderation, again, not like this, the em-dash offers a useful, and even amusing, way of emphasizing a point.

Use ellipses to show that the thought is fading… Every time I see an ellipsis, a set of three points, I hear the sound of harp music. The ellipses (plural of ellipses) suggest that the thought is turning off, reflecting, open ideas. Ellipses allow us to drift for a moment…

Case in point: “Dorothy considered her challenge: ‘If only I could get to see the Wizard of Oz…'” We see the girl with braided hair, a wicker basket, and a dog named Toto staring off into space, in her own world, lost in thought.

Ellipses also perform a more technical task: marking spaces in quoted passages. Citations often omit entire sections. People rarely speak in compact packages, so writers must tie together comments made at different times. To indicate a space, use an ellipsis. Thus, we can quote John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address this way:

Do not ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country… Let us move forward to lead the land we love, asking for His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our

Ellipses here indicate that the writer has cut words from the original source. Connecting one part of the quote to another quickly makes a point.

Psst: Use parentheses to make apart. Sometimes you want to offer a piece of related information. That information could strengthen the argument (provide details or context) or simply provide an aside. (Ben Yagoda loves parentheses.)

Parentheses offer an efficient way to add background information. When you want to provide examples of multiple things, use parentheses instead of saying “for example” over and over again. When Barack Obama began to form his administration in 2008, he turned to America’s elite universities. New York Times columnist David Brooks described the emerging team:

January 20, 2009 will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will be sworn in under the proud gaze of his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law). Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will be beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford). Phil.).

Here an elite, there an elite, everywhere an elite. Brooks uses parentheses to make this point nicely.

Excessive use of parentheses makes typing difficult. It’s disorienting when you get pulled out of your main train of thought, over and over again. On the other hand, sometimes you want to show how hectic the world can be. “So my parentheses are part of my style?” Yagoda asks (rhetorically). “Actually, yes. They appeal to me in part because they express my belief that the world and language are multiple, gnarled, and illuminated by digression.”

Use quotation marks to say exactly what someone said. To indicate that you are using someone’s exact words, use quotation marks. So:

“Ask not what your country can do for you,” said President Kennedy. “Ask what you can do for your country.”

Use the exact words of the speaker. If you want to paraphrase, quote only the words that were said and use your own words to connect the sentences. So:

After challenging the nation to “ask what you can do for your country,” President Kennedy challenged other nations to “ask not what America will do for you, but what we can do together for the liberty of man.”

Punctuation is usually enclosed in quotation marks. Therefore: “Ask not what your country can do for you,” Kennedy said.

Place punctuation marks outside of quotation marks to avoid confusion about what is being quoted. When TV journalist Tim Russert died, a website ran this headline: Tom Brokaw to host “Meet the Press?” The headline suggests that Brokaw was in fact the host and that the show’s name contains a question. The headline should have asked, “Tom Brokaw as host of ‘Meet the Press’?

Sometimes it is necessary to quote someone by quoting another person. To do that, use single quotes, inside double quotes, like this:

“I went back to the doctor and he said, ‘Henry, I told you, you can’t do it, you’re going to die in that mine.’ I said, ‘Well, Dr. Craft, let me try one more time,’ because he had some debts that he wanted to pay off.”

And what about a quote within a quote within a quote? Go back to double quotes (“), like so:

“I met Joyce at the rally and she was like, ‘Let’s sing something. How about, ‘I’m not going to let anybody turn me around’? Let’s do it.'”

Use exclamation points (rarely!) to show enthusiasm or be emphatic. I once worked with someone who used exclamation marks, lots of them, all the time! Whether talking about something mundane or exciting, he ended every sentence with a multitude of these happy punctuation marks! I guess it’s not too different from someone who agrees with you all the time, or says “have a nice day” no matter what’s going on!!!! But it’s too much!!!!

Sober wordsmiths avoid exclamation points, except to show someone yelling. They point out, for example, that the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression does not include shouting “Fire!” in a theater full of people. Novelist Elmore Leonard suggests using no more than two or three exclamation points per 100,000 words (the length of a book). And I agree. Mainly! To show real emotion, tell a great story instead of relying on lighthearted punctuation.

And yet I admire Tom Wolfe so much that I admit the value of each and every one of his exclamations. By one count, Wolfe’s novel The Bonfire of the Vanities contains 2,343 exclamation points in 659 pages. “I’m trying to restore the score to where it belongs,” Wolfe once explained. “The periods, hyphens and exclamation points were removed from the prose because they ‘smelled of sentimentality’. But still! shows someone letting go. Why not? The writer is careful not to use this punctuation and does not bother to convey what is exciting to the reader.”

Wolfe uses the exclamation point deftly, conveying overzealousness or innocence or naivety or rudeness. It works for him. However, for most of us, it’s like a sharp object best left in the drawer!