What would life be like without punctuation? Schoolchildren might rejoice that there would be less homework. But when you stop and think about it, that homework would be more difficult. Anything we read would be so much more confusing.
Charles Dickens at his desk in 1858, wikipedia
Because of the period, we are able to see where one thought ends and another begins. Thanks to quotation marks, we know when someone is speaking. Because of the question mark, we know when a question is being asked. Because of the comma, we know when items are in a list or when parts of a sentence need to be separated. Semicolons connect closely related independent clauses. Colons are used to introduce text that illustrates text before the colon. They are also used to introduce lists.
Imagine living in a world where punctuation didn’t exist. For example, the first sentence from the classic A Tale of Two Cities (my apologies to the great author Charles Dickens) would appear as written below.
It was the best of times it was the worst of times it was the age of wisdom it was the age of foolishness it was the epoch of belief it was the epoch of incredulity it was the season of Light it was the season of Darkness it was the spring of hope it was the winter of despair we had everything before us we had nothing before us we were all going direct to Heaven we were all going direct the other way in short the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received for good or for evil in the superlative degree of comparison only
Without punctuation, the only way we could know where a sentence ends and another begins is with capitalization. But there are only four capitalized words in the above sentence, so that wouldn’t work with the example above. I’m sure you can find a copy of the above sentence written in the correct manner. It is much easier to understand.
Even sentences shorter than the one above that Charles Dickens wrote are confusing without punctuation. On her way to meet someone at the Empire State Building Mary did the following she fed the ducks in the park picked up her clothes from the cleaners and went to the grocery store.
The period, or full stop, is the most commonly used form of punctuation. It appears at the end of sentences and after abbreviations. The rules for the use of the period are simple.
period or full stop, wikimedia
A period is placed at the end of a complete sentence.
The sound of the balcony doors shattering drew me out of what had been a deep and peaceful sleep.
Abbreviations
A period is placed at the end of abbreviations. Please notice that the following abbreviations end in lower case letters.
Mr., Mrs., Jr.
Initials in names should be followed by a period and separated by spaces.
L. J. Binion, A. L. Gentry
No periods or spaces are needed if the initials represent full names.
JFK, FDR
But what if the last word in a sentence is an abbreviation that ends with a period? That period also serves to signal that it is the end of the sentence. There is no need to have a double period.
Tyler’s dream was to become an M.D. Only four, he had many years of school ahead.
Periods and spaces are not used in the initials of nonhuman proper nouns – US, FBI, GB. Just to make matters confusing, there is an exception to this rule. In any context in which traditional state abbreviations (not the two-letter postal codes) are used, one is allowed to use periods in U.S. but no spaces are needed.
What if a sentence ends with an abbreviation? The period at the end of the abbreviation is also used as the final period.
You need to talk to G.W.
What about abbreviations of generic nouns? We seem to be surrounded by these in this day and time. When the abbreviation of a generic noun ends with a capital letter—DVD, CD, GPA—there is no period.
A period is used to end an indirect question.
She asked where her books had been hidden.
A period is also used to end a rhetorical question.
How about that.
Really.
A period is used in math, for example, $4.32, and in internet addresses such as http://lisaswritopia.com/. What if your sentence ends with a URL? As you can see, I placed a period at the end of the first sentence in this paragraph that ended with a URL. There is no need to leave a space between the URL and the period.
Period Placement When Other Punctuation is Also in Use
The period always comes before the closing quotation marks.
“Please,” she begged, “don’t allow him to leave.”
What about single quotation marks? Again, the period always comes before the closing single quotation mark. And don’t confuse the single quotation mark with an apostrophe.
When a sentence in parentheses or brackets can stand on its own as a sentence, the period comes before the closing parenthesis.
The music was so loud that it made her ears hurt. (She was standing right in front of the stage.)
An ellipsis is the three-dot punctuation used where words have been omitted or where speech has been interrupted. If an ellipsis comes after a complete sentence, a period is placed before the three-dot ellipsis.
He crashed the party. . . . He crashed the engagement party to kidnap the bride.
If the words before the ellipsis do not make up a complete sentence, a period is not inserted.
His words . . .sent cold chills down her spine.
Recommended Articles:
Conjunctions and Commas
Single Quotation Marks vs. Regular Quotation Marks vs. Italics
The Classy Colon & the Sassy Semicolon
Dialogue Tags
That Troublesome Apostrophe
Comma Splices
How to Use Commas with Appositives & Direct Address
