Punctuation is the system of symbols (. , ! – : “) that we use to separate sentences and parts of sentences, and to make their meaning clear. Each symbol is called a “punctuation mark”.
Punctuation marks are important for both written and spoken English. In written English, the correct usage of these marks expresses the intended meaning of the sentence. In spoken English, punctuation marks denote the pauses and intonations to be used.
Incorrect punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence. Some of the commonly used punctuation marks are:
• . is a full stop or period – used at the end of a sentence
• , is a comma – used to denote pause in the sentence.
• ? is a question mark or query – used at the end of an interrogative sentence to form a question.
• ! is an exclamation mark – used to denote shock, surprise, anger or a raised voice.
• ‘ is an apostrophe – used to show possession or for contraction of word.
• ” is a quotation mark.
• : is a colon – used at the beginning of a list and to replace a semicolon in between two parts of a sentence.
• ; is a semicolon – like colon semicolon is used to connect two parts of a sentence.
• … is an ellipsis – used to show there is more to be said
• – is a hyphen – has many uses, mostly used to break single words into parts.
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