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Unread 01-06-2012, 07:47 AM
Susan d.S.'s Avatar
Susan d.S. Susan d.S. is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 1,445
Default Punctuation

Ellipsis signals...hesitation, and exclamation, excitation!
To balance loads, a comma tows. To rehash-- we hire a dash.
Capitals Lead and Emphasize, dwarfing letters half their size.
The sweet and small apostrophe averts plural catastrophes.

Punctilious, the blunt full stop is grammar's tireless traffic cop.*
The brackets (sanitation guys) enclose just what a phrase denies.
Quotation marks with tongs suspend the words you do not “comprehend“.
Should you desire to inquire, mark with question’s twisty gyre.
For heavy lifting take in hand a squat & muscled ampersand.
@ points to a virtual place, toils the roads of cyberspace.

Humble marks, our punctuation, serve in every situation.
Every stroke, or strike of key, compounds their abject slavery.
Unpaid labourers of the word, couriers and serfs unheard;
If un-tethered from their master, it shall intimate disaster.
Should they gather in a restive mob, they'll disdain to do their job.
Collectively, a motley crew--they go on strike, and shout: @#$%^&* you!

*was: "Punctual and to a point, periods prose with sense anoint,
Without cease, they call "full stop!," grammar's tireless traffic cop" (thanks, Jerome!)


A few questions:

What is the name of an @ ? (L11)
I believe standard British punctuation has the period or full stop after (not inside) the quotation marks? (L7 ).
Does British English ever refer to full stops as "period"s?
Thanks,
Susan

Last edited by Susan d.S.; 01-09-2012 at 06:04 AM. Reason: further tinkering, L5 was 2 lines, too long and confusion with period as sentence in Johnson's sense, thanks, Jerome!
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