“People don’t know why they get so upset about language,” David Crystal told me recently, over Skype from his home in Wales. “ ‘Potato’s,’ with an apostrophe ‘S,’ ” he offered, as an example of the ...

One of the difficulties about punctuation is that a lot of it is down to personal preference or “style”. And that isn’t just a recent thing, to be blamed on textspeak and the belief that the world is ...

Tired of ending your sentences with a boring period or exclamation point? Try one of these uncommon punctuation marks instead, and impress your grammar-loving friends. Uncommon punctuation marks ...

Commas, semicolons and question marks are so commonplace it seems as if they were always there – but that’s not the case. Keith Houston explains their history. As readers and writers, we’re intimately ...

Why is punctuation important? From emails to text messages, poetry to novels, punctuation guides readers, creates rhythm and brings clarity to even the most complex ideas. Imagine reading a sentence ...

Punctuation marks may be small, but they carry a lot of weight—shaping tone, clarifying meaning and even signaling the writer’s personality. I adore the em dash; I tend to be a bit of a drama queen ...