4 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
(Remember, an asterisk is used to mark a sentence which is
poorly punctuated, or which is otherwise defective.)
Bad punctuation does not require an enormous effort to
put right. If you work carefully through this book, then,
providing you think carefully about what you're writing as
you write it, you will undoubtedly find that your punctuation
has improved a great deal. Your readers will thank you for it
ever after.
Chapter 2
The Full Stop, the Question Mark and the
Exclamation Mark
2.1 The Full Stop
The full stop (.), also called the period, presents few problems.
It is chiefly used to mark the end of a sentence expressing a
statement, as in the following examples:
Terry Pratchett's latest book is not yet out in paperback.
I asked her whether she could tell me the way to
Brighton.
Chinese, uniquely among the world's languages, is
written in a logographic script.
The British and the Irish drive on the left; all other
Europeans drive on the right.
Note how the full stops are used in the following article,
extracted from the Guardian:
The opening of Ken Loach's film Riff-Raff in New York
casts doubt on Winston Churchill's observation that the
United States and Britain were two countries separated by
a common language. In what must be a first, an entire
British film has been given sub-titles to help Americans cut
6 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
through the thick stew of Glaswegian, Geordie, Liverpud-
lian, West African and West Indian accents. With the
arrival of Riff-Raff, English as spoken by many British
citizens has qualified as a foreign language in the US.
Admittedly, the accents on the screen would present a
challenge to many people raised on the Queen's English.
But it is disconcerting to watch a British film with sub-
titles, not unlike watching Marlon Brando dubbed into
Italian.
There is one common error you must watch out for. Here is
an example of it (remember, an asterisk marks a badly punctu-
ated sentence):
* Norway has applied for EC membership, Sweden is
expected to do the same.
Can you see what's wrong with this? Yes, there are two
complete statements here, but the first one has been punctu-
ated only with a comma. This is not possible, and something
needs to be changed. The simplest way of fixing the example
is to change the comma to a full stop:
Norway has applied for EC membership. Sweden is
expected to do the same.
Now each statement has its own full stop. This is correct, but
you might consider it clumsy to use two short sentences in a
row. If so, you can change the bad example in a different
way:
The Full Stop, the Question Mark and the Exclamation Mark 7
Norway has applied for EC membership, and Sweden is
expected to do the same.
This time we have used the connecting word and to combine
the two short statements into one longer statement, and so
now we need only one full stop at the end.
Here are some further examples of this very common
error:
* Bangladesh is one of the world's poorest countries, its
annual income is only $80 per person.
* The British are notoriously bad at learning foreign
languages, the Dutch are famously good at it.
* The proposal to introduce rock music to Radio 3 has
caused an outcry, angry letters have been pouring
into the BBC.
* Borg won his fifth straight Wimbledon title in 1980,
the following year he lost in the final to McEnroe.
All of these examples suffer from the same problem: a comma
has been used to join two complete sentences. In each case,
either the comma should be replaced by a full stop, or a
suitable connecting word should be added, such as and or
while.
In Chapter 4, I'll explain another way of punctuating these
sentences, by using a semicolon.
Full stops are also sometimes used in punctuating abbrevi-
ations; this is discussed in Chapter 7.
8 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
Summary of full stops
• Put a full stop at the end of a complete statement.
• Do not connect two statements with a comma.
2.2 The Question Mark
A question mark (?) is placed at the end of a sentence which is
a direct question. Here are some examples:
What is the capital of Wales?
Does anyone have a pen I can borrow?
Who told you that?
In which country did coffee originate?
If the question is a direct quotation, repeating the speaker's
exact words, a question mark is still used:
'Have you a pen I can borrow?' she asked.
'How many of you have pets at home?' inquired the
teacher.
But a question mark is not used in an indirect question, in
which the speaker's exact words are not repeated:
She asked if I had a pen she could borrow.
The teacher asked how many of us had pets at home.
Here only a full stop is used, since the whole sentence is now
a statement.
The Full Stop, the Question Mark and the Exclamation Mark 9
The question mark also has one minor use: it may be
inserted into the middle of something, inside parentheses, to
show that something is uncertain. Here are two examples:
The famous allegorical poem Piers Plowman is attributed
to William Langland (?i332-?i4oo).
The Lerga inscription fascinatingly contains the personal
name Vmme Sahar (?), which looks like perfect Basque.
The question marks on the poet's birth and death dates indic-
ate that those dates are not certain, and the one in the second
example indicates that the reading of the name is possibly
doubtful.
Summary of question marks
• Use a question mark at the end of a direct question.
• Do not use a question mark at the end of an indirect
question.
• Use an internal question mark to show that something is
uncertain.
2.3 The Exclamation Mark
The exclamation mark (!), known informally as a bang or a
shriek, is used at the end of a sentence or a short phrase which
expresses very strong feeling. Here are some examples:
What a lovely view you have here!
10 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
That's fantastic!
Johnny, don't touch that!
Help!
Good heavens!
Aaarrgh!
Examples like these are quite normal in those kinds of writing
that try to represent ordinary speech - for example, in novels.
But exclamation marks are usually out of place in formal
writing. Using them frequently will give your work a breath-
less, almost childish, quality.
An exclamation mark is also usual after an exclamation
beginning with what or how:
What fools people can be!
How well Marshall bowled yesterday!
Note that such sentences are exclamations, and not state-
ments. Compare them with statements:
People can be such fools.
Marshall bowled very well yesterday.
You can also use an exclamation mark to show that a state-
ment is very surprising:
After months of careful work, the scientists finally opened
the tomb. It was empty!
It is also permissible to use an exclamation mark to draw
attention to an interruption:
The Full Stop, the Question Mark and the Exclamation Mark 11
On the (rare!) occasion when you use a Latin
abbreviation, be sure to punctuate it properly.
Otherwise, you should generally avoid using exclamation
marks in your formal writing. Don't write things like this:
* Do not use exclamation marks in formal writing!
* In 1848, gold was discovered in California!
Don't use an exclamation mark unless you're certain it's
necessary — and never use two or three of them in a row:
* This is a sensational result!!!
This sort of thing is all right in personal letters, but it is
completely out of place in formal writing.
Summary of exclamation marks
* Don't use an exclamation mark unless it's absolutely
necessary.
* Use an exclamation mark after an exclamation, especially
after one beginning with what or how.
2.4 A Final Point
Note that a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark
is never preceded by a white space. Things like the following
are wrong:
12 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
* How well has Darwin's theory stood up ?
A sentence-final punctuation mark is always written next to
the last word of the sentence.
2.5 Fragments
A fragment is a word or a phrase which stands by itself but
which does not make up a complete sentence. Fragments are
very common in ordinary speech, in advertisements and even
in newspapers. They may be used very sparingly in formal
writing; when used, they should be followed by a full stop, a
question mark or an exclamation mark, as appropriate:
Will the Star Wars project ever be resumed? Probably
not.
We need to encourage investment in manufacturing. But
how?
Can England beat Australia? Absolutely!
The judicious use of fragments can add vividness to your
writing, and they are quite acceptable in writing which is
somewhat informal. But don't overdo them: if you use too
many fragments, your work will become breathless and dis-
jointed.
Chapter 3
The Comma
The comma (,) is very frequently used and very frequently
used wrongly. In fact, the rules for using commas are really
rather simple, though complicated by the fact that the comma
has four distinct uses. To begin with, forget anything you've
ever been told about using a comma 'wherever you would
pause', or anything of the sort; this well-meaning advice is
hopelessly misleading. In this book, the four uses of the
comma are called the listing comma, the joining comma, the
gapping comma and bracketing commas. Each use has its own
rules, but note that a comma is never preceded by a white
space and always followed by a white space.
3.1 The Listing Comma
The listing comma is used as a kind of substitute for the word
and, or sometimes for or. It occurs in two slightly different
circumstances. First, it is used in a list when three or more
words, phrases or even complete sentences are joined by the
word and or or; we might call this construction an X, Y and
Z list:
14 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
The Three Musketeers were Athos, Porthos and Aramis.
Hungarian is spoken in Hungary, in western Rumania, in
northern Serbia and in parts of Austria and Slovakia.
You can fly to Bombay via Moscow, via Athens or via
Cairo.
Lisa speaks French, Juliet speaks Italian and I speak
Spanish.
We spent our evenings chatting in the cafes, watching the
sun set over the harbour, stuffing ourselves with the
local crabs and getting pleasantly sloshed on retsina.
Note that in all these examples the commas could be replaced
by the word and or or, though the result would be rather
clumsy:
The Three Musketeers were Athos and Porthos and
Aramis.
Hungarian is spoken in Hungary and in western
Rumania and in northern Serbia and in parts of Austria
and Slovakia.
You can fly to Bombay via Moscow or via Athens or via
Cairo.
Lisa speaks French and Juliet speaks Italian and I speak
Spanish.
We spent our evenings chatting in the cafes and
watching the sun set over the harbour and stuffing
ourselves with the local crabs and getting pleasantly
sloshed on retsina.
Observe that you can connect three or more complete sen-
The Comma 15
tences with listing commas, as in the Lisa/Juliet example
above. Note the difference here:
Lisa speaks French, Juliet speaks Italian and I speak
Spanish.
* Lisa speaks French, Juliet speaks Italian.
Remember, you must not join two complete sentences with
a comma, but three or more complete sentences may be
joined with listing commas plus and or or.
Note also that it is not usual in British usage to put a listing
comma before the word and or or itself (though American
usage regularly puts one there). So, in British usage, it is not
usual to write
(A) The Three Musketeers were Athos, Porthos, and
Aramis.
This is reasonable, since the listing comma is a substitute for
the word and, not an addition to it. However, you should
put a comma in this position if doing so would make your
meaning clearer:
My favourite opera composers are Verdi, Puccini,
Mozart, and Gilbert and Sullivan.
Here the comma before and shows clearly that Gilbert and
Sullivan worked together. If you omit the comma, the result
might be confusing:
* My favourite opera composers are Verdi, Puccini,
Mozart and Gilbert and Sullivan.
16 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
Here, the reader might possibly take Mozart and Gilbert as
the pair who worked together. The extra comma removes
the problem.
A listing comma is also used in a list of modifiers which all
modify the same thing. This time there will usually be no and
present at all, but again such a comma could be replaced by
and without destroying the sense:
This is a provocative, disturbing book.
Her long, dark, glossy hair fascinated me.
Try replacing the commas by and:
This is a provocative and disturbing book.
Her long and dark and glossy hair fascinated me.
The sense is unchanged, though the second example, at least,
is much clumsier without the commas.
Observe the difference in the next two examples:
She gave me an antique ivory box.
I prefer Australian red wines to all others.
This time there are no commas. It would be wrong to write
* She gave me an antique, ivory box.
* I prefer Australian, red wines to all others.
Why the difference? In these examples, a listing comma
cannot be used because there is no list: the word and cannot
possibly be inserted:
* She gave me an antique and ivory box.
The Comma 17
• I prefer Australian and red wines to all others.
The reason for the difference is that the modifiers this time
do not modify the same thing. In the first example, ivory
modifies box, but antique modifies ivory box, not just box. In
the second example, Australian modifies red wines, not just
wines.
So the rules are clear:
• Use a listing comma in a list wherever you could
conceivably use the word and (or or) instead. Do not use a
listing comma anywhere else.
• Put a listing comma before and or or only if this is necessary
to make your meaning clear.
3.2 The Joining Comma
The joining comma is only slightly different from the listing
comma. It is used to join two complete sentences into a single
sentence, and it must be followed by a suitable connecting
word. The connecting words which can be used in this way
are and, or, but, while and yet. Here are some examples:
Norway has applied to join the EC, and Sweden is
expected to do the same.
You must hand in your essay by Friday, or you will
receive a mark of zero.
Britain has long been isolated in Europe, but now she is
beginning to find allies.
18 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
Billions of dollars have been hurled into the Star Wars
projects, yet we appear to have nothing to show for
this colossal expenditure.
A dropped goal counts three points in rugby union, while
in rugby league it only counts one point.
Remember, as I pointed out in section 2.1, you cannot join
two sentences with a comma unless you also use one of these
connecting words. All of the following examples are therefore
wrong:
* Bangladesh is one of the world's poorest countries, its
annual income is only $80 per person.
* The British are notoriously bad at learning foreign
languages, the Dutch are famously good at it.
The proposal to introduce rock music to Radio 3 has
caused an outcry, angry letters have been pouring
into the BBC.
* Borg won his fifth straight Wimbledon title in 1980,
the following year he lost in the final to McEnroe.
Joining two complete sentences with a comma in this way is
one of the commonest of all punctuation errors, but one of
the easiest to avoid if you pay a little attention to what you're
writing. Either you must follow the comma with one of the
connecting words listed above, or you must replace the
comma with a semicolon, as explained in Chapter 4 below.
Note also that most other connecting words cannot be
preceded by a joining comma. For example, the connecting
words however, therefore, hence, consequently, nevertheless and thus
The Comma 19
cannot be used after a joining comma. Hence the following
examples are also wrong:
* Saturn was long thought to be the only ringed planet,
however, this is now known not to be the case.
* Two members of the expedition were too ill to
continue, nevertheless the others decided to press on.
* Liverpool are five points behind the leaders, therefore
they must win both their remaining games.
Sentences like these once again require, not a comma, but a
semicolon, as explained in Chapter 4.
The rule is again easy:
* Use a joining comma to join two complete sentences with
one of the words and, or, but yet or while. Do not use a
joining comma in any other way.
3.3 The Gapping Comma
The gapping comma is very easy. We use a gapping comma
to show that one or more words have been left out when the
missing words would simply repeat the words already used
earlier in the same sentence. Here is an example:
Some Norwegians wanted to base their national language
on the speech of the capital city; others, on the speech
of the rural countryside.
The gapping comma here shows that the words wanted to base
20 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
their national language, which might have been repeated, have
instead been omitted. This sentence is equivalent to a longer
sentence like this:
Some Norwegians wanted to base their national language
on the speech of the capital city; others wanted to base
it on the speech of the rural countryside.
Here is another example, which contains both listing commas
and gapping commas:
Italy is famous for her composers and musicians, France,
for her chefs and philosophers, and Poland, for her
mathematicians and logicians.
(Here I have inserted a listing comma before and for the sake
of clarity.)
Gapping commas are not always strictly necessary: you can
leave them out if the sentence is perfectly clear without them:
Italy is famous for her composers and musicians, France
for her chefs and philosophers, and Poland for her
mathematicians and logicians.
Use your judgement: if a sentence seems clear without
gapping commas, don't use them; if you have doubts, put
them in.
The Comma 21
3.4 Bracketing Commas
Bracketing commas (also called isolating commas) do a very
different job from the other three types. These are the most
frequently used type of comma, and they cause more prob-
lems than the other types put together. The rule is this: a pair
of bracketing commas is used to mark offa weak interruption
of the sentence - that is, an interruption which does not dis-
turb the smooth flow of the sentence. Note that word
'pair': bracketing commas, in principle at least, always occur
in pairs, though sometimes one of them is not written, as
explained below. Look carefully at these examples of bracket-
ing commas:
These findings, we would suggest, cast doubt upon his
hypothesis.
Schliemann, of course, did his digging before modern
archaeology was invented.
Pratchett has, it would seem, abandoned Rincewind the
wizard to the ravages of the Discworld.
Darwin's Origin of Species, published in 1859,
revolutionized biological thinking.
The Pakistanis, like the Australians before them, have
exposed the shortcomings of the England batting
order.
Rupert Brooke, who was killed in the war at the age of
twenty-eight, was one of our finest poets.
We have been forced to conclude, after careful study of
22 The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
the data, that the proposed correlations, in spite of their
obvious appeal, do not stand up.
In each case a weak interruption has been set off by a pair of
bracketing commas. (The last example has two weak
interruptions.) Now notice something important: in every
one of these examples, the weak interruption set off by
bracketing commas could, in principle, be removed from the
sentence, and the result would still be a complete sentence
that made good sense. Try this with some of the examples:
These findings cast doubt upon his hypothesis.
Pratchett has abandoned Rincewind the wizard to the
ravages of the Discworld.
The Pakistanis have exposed the shortcomings of the
England batting order.
We have been forced to conclude that the proposed
correlations do not stand up.
This is always the case with bracketing commas, and it gives
you a simple way of checking your punctuation. If you have
set off some words with a pair of bracketing commas, and
you find you can't remove those words without destroying
the sentence, you have done something wrong. Here is an
example of wrong use, taken from Carey (1958):
Yet, outside that door, lay a whole new world.
If you try to remove the words outside that door, the result is
* Yet lay a whole new world, which is not a sentence. The
The Comma 23
problem here is that outside that door is not an interruption at
all: it's an essential part of the sentence. So, the bracketing
commas shouldn't be there. Just get rid of them:
Yet outside that door lay a whole new world.
Here is another example:
* She groped for her cigarettes, and finding them, hastily
lit one.
This time, if you try to remove the words and finding them,
the result is * She groped for her cigarettes hastily lit one, which
is again not a sentence. The problem is that the interruption
in this sentence is only the sequence finding them; the word
and is not part of the interruption, but an essential part of the
sentence. So move the first comma:
She groped for her cigarettes and, finding them, hastily lit
one.
Now check that the interruption has been correctly marked
off:
She groped for her cigarettes and hastily lit one.
This is a good sentence, so you have now got the bracketing
commas in the right places.
Since bracketing commas really do confuse many people,
let's look at some further examples:
* Stanley was a determined, even ruthless figure.
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