My Article on Punctuations

                                                     Punctuation

Punctuation plays an important role in developing writing skills. It is very often proved that punctuation may alter the meaning of a sentence.

In other words, Punctuation means Pause marks of a language. Every one of us should know the importance of these pause marks. Otherwise, our words become meaningless, our speech become useless.

Whoever the person is, wherever he is, whatever his position is he should have clarity about these pause marks.

For E g: Read this given example carefully.

1.     Hang him, not leave him.

Here, Hang him means the criminal should be punished at any cost.

2.     Hang him not, leave him.

Here, Hang him not means, the criminal should not be punished at any cost.

In the example 1 and 2 the place of pause mark reveals two things one is punished and two is not punished.

Here, if you imagine this in the case of a Judge, he should know how to read the judgment   with appropriate pauses, otherwise unknowingly he may punish the innocent person.

So remember one thing is one comma [,] has power to take us into Coma [unconscious] means death.

As Bacon said:  Reading makes a man perfect; Writing makes a man exact.

Of course, To write is our right. But whatever we write that should be right.

Such is the importance of punctuation in writing.

 That’s why   it is very necessary for us to study use of punctuation marks.

Punctuation: The right use of the ‘stops’ in a sentence is known as Punctuation.

Some of the principal Punctuation Marks:

1.F ull Stop [.]

2. Comma [,]

3. Semicolon [;]

4. Colon [:]

5. Interrogation Mark [?]

6. Exclamation Mark [!]

7. Inverted Commas or Quotation Mark [ “ “]

8. Apostrophe [‘]

1. Full Stop:

[a]  The full stop indicates the end of a sentence.

For E g: 1.The rose is the queen of flowers.

2. MotherTerissa is symbol of peace and God.

[b] It is used after abbreviations.

For E g:  U.N.O.        U.N.E.S.C.O.       Ph.D

              Lt.Gen         Prof.                    W.H.O.

2 .Comma [,]:

 [a] to separate more than  two words in a sentence.

For Eg: The earth, the moon, the Venus, the Jupiter and the Uranus are all planets.

Ø He likes the mango, the apple, and the Orange.

[b] to separate phrases and clauses.

For E g: 1.It was raining, but he left for school.

2. This building, which was once an office, is his house now.

3. Having seen the police, the thief ran away.

3.Semicolon  [;] :

It is used to separate two or more related sentences and it marks a longer pause than a ‘comma’.

For Eg: My uncle is a poor, uneducated, honest, simple man; but I love him.

4 .Colon [:] :

[a] It is used to introduce a quotation.

For E g: Aristotle said: Man is a social animal.

[b] To introduce a list.

E g: The subject I like: History, Philosophy, Psychology, Poetry and Music.

[c] To introduce an explanation,

E g: The reason for my delay in this: I am becoming restless these days.

5. Interrogation Mark[?]:

[a] It is used after a direct question.

E g: 1.Have you ever seen the Taj Mahal?

2. Which dish you like most?

Note: No Interrogation mark is used after an indirect question.

E g: 1. I wanted to know where she had gone.

2. I asked him what he was doing.

6. Exclamation Mark[!] :

It is used after the words which express sudden and strong feelings of   human beings   such as joy, fear, sorrow, regrettion , surprise, overwhelm [joy with surprise], praise etc…

For E g: How sweet the mango is! [This is surprise.]

Alas! He is no more. [This is sorrow.]

My God! I forgot my hall ticket at home. [this expresses fear].

Ureka! I got it. [ureka means joy with surprise].

Yahoo! We won the match.[joy]

7. Inverted Commas or quotation Marks [“ “]:

These are used to indicate direct speech.

For E g: 1.Rajesh said, “ I have never seen the Taj Mahal.”

2. MotherTerissa says, “ Give a lot of time to improvement of  yourself. Then there is no time to criticize others.”

8. Apostrophe [‘]:

[a] It is used to denote possessive form of nouns.

For E g: India’s population, America’s wealth, Mother’s love, Japan’s expertise, etc…

[b] In place of missing letters in words,

For E g: 1.I can’t go now.

2. I’ll see you later.

3. I don’t know anything about him.

[c] In plurals of letters and numbers.

For E g:

1. He was born in 80’s.

2. India became independent in40’s.

                                                           Thank you.