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Punctuation's Most Wanted
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Published: 2008-01-03 06:52:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 55154; Favourites: 2341; Downloads: 1553
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Description
(Bloody hell, what category does this thing belong in?)So ~BrookeTheVampire asks, "...a page dedicated to use of punctuation would help out. I still have trouble sometimes with colons and semicolons, and it's always nice for someone to be able to find that out all in one spot!"
Well, BrookeTheVampire, ask and ye shall receive! This is the Punctuation Gang's Most Wanted list, all your favorite evil punctuation on one handy reference poster!
The display version above is designed to be viewed on-screen; however, there is also a downloadable "full" version , designed to be appropriate for printing at poster-size.
If you're having trouble with punctuation, this is (hopefully) a handy answer to your questions.
Related content
Comments: 295
I don't pee in your pool, so please don't spam your advertisements on my works. Β Thank you.
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This is so cute! I want to print it and donate it to my favorite English teachers for use in their classrooms.
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You're quite welcome to do so! There's a downloadable version that's designed for printing. You can find a link to it in the comments just under the deviation.
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Awesome! Now to get more ink before my printer runs out...
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What? No elipses (...)? lol, jk. Good stuff you have already.
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Most people can't handle the difference between a hyphen and a dash, much less handle the subtleties of when to use an ellipsis. (Hint: The correct answer is a variation on "almost never.")
No, I'll be satisfied if I can merely see people begin using commas in the right places. But as it's three years hence from the original casting of this work and the Internet's grammar is as awful as ever, if not worse, I'm not holding my breath.
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It's become such a frequent error that when I read aloud passages online, I say "it is" in the place of "it's" for what I like to think are entertaining results. "Pick up the bottle at it is neck." It used to infuriate me, but now it's how I spend my days. D:
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This is so cute... LOL , it really helped me, cus sometimes I don't get it. ^^
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This is possibly one of the greatest things ever.
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Very clever.
I'd like to see another "tutorial" on the correct use of words.
Things like "they're, their, there" or the horribly overused "alot".
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I love this simply because semicolons are usually my worst nemesis. x)
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Hmm, I always used single quotes to denote when someone is thinking something in my stories instead of thinking, or in place of air quotations.
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Yeah, "I" bend/break these rules (harbour these fugitives) all the time, (much to my chagrin), you know? Its a real problem!
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I would have loved this when I was learning about punctuation back in grade school. Grammar booklets were just too much.
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I cannot express to you how much I love this.
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What about questions within questions?
For instance, Would it be ...
Will you ask, "When is the meeting?"
or
Will you ask, "When is the meeting"?
or
Will you ask, "When is the meeting?"?
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Only one element of terminating punctuation is allowed, and that punctuation must be placed inside the quotation marks. So the only correct form of those three is:
> Will you ask, "When is the meeting?"
That's the rule, like it or not.
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Huh.
I was taught ... oh a score or so ago, that there was a time when the question mark went outside the quotes. I thought this was it. Maybe the rules have changed over the years.
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This makes the English geek in me very happy.
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I promise you that, on the day I get my classroom, this shall be hung on my wall for my students to see.
Thank you, from a future English teacher!
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This is phenomenal can you be/ are you a teacher?
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No, I'm just more than a little paranoid about grammar. Although, for the record, a number of people have suggested I ought to teach, so perhaps you may be on to something there.
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I'd write a comment here but I dare not risk my atrocious punctuation, or spelling. If I proceeded with said risk, I'd say how great it was, funny and helpful in one.
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I need to get one of these and ask my English teacher to hang it on the wall in his classroom! All we ever do is analyze old books and poems in my class! HAS EVERYONE FORGOTTEN ABOUT GRAMMAR?
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ahahahaaa gave me a good laugh during class...
Well done, well done indeed. Pure genius! I mean....pure genius.
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Poor Ampersand! I love you & will always respect you!
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L a W L.
Informative and amusing are not often seen together.
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If I were a teacher, I'd buy a few prints (and possibly even a limited reproduction for education license) to put this up for my students. Great work here.
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This is great. It would be a neat resource in any classroom.
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In the Double Quotes there's a small typo, I'm thinking, where it says "so they may hired for work". I'm assuming there's a "be" which was supposed to be in there.
Otherwise, good information provided in an entertaining format; nice work! Although I think saying that punctuation always go before quotes is inaccurate, since it goes after for most non-dialogue quotes that I've ever used (such as above!) but hey... I'm no expert on punctuation. As can be seen by this paragraph and my usage of ellipsis which would probably give editors a fit. 
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This is fantastic. I'm an English teacher and I would really like to use this with my students. Would you be all right with that? I could cite your page so that the kids can come and look at your work if they choose.
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Please, by all means, feel free to use it with your students β every grammar error these kinds of tutorials eradicate is one fewer we all have to read!
There's a printer-friendly version that's designed to fit on a poster or on legal-size paper, and you're quite welcome to print as many copies as you need of either that version or this version.
You may also wish to consider using my other grammar-related deviations, Top Ten ways to Guarantee Your Writing Will Be Popular * and Top Ten Grammar Errors [in prose fiction] . The "Popular" deviation has a convenient PDF file that will print nicely on standard 8.5x11 paper. The "Top Ten Grammar Errors" deviation isn't a very printer-friendly shape, but with a little effort, you could probably make it usable, should you wish to.
As regards attribution, you may want to avoid that β seriously. A substantial portion of the artwork I've posted here is Not Work Safe, so you probably don't want to be pointing anyone below the age of majority at my gallery. (That said, many teenagers have both +faved my deviations and +watched me, so it's more of a paranoid-parent thing than a student-appropriateness thing.) So it's up to you: If anybody asks, you can tell them on the sly, but I wouldn't necessarily broadcast your sources given how paranoid some parents are these days.
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I will most assuredly look into these other resources you've created and I really appreciate your sensitivity on the subject of attribution. You're doing some truly fantastic work here. I've learned things from this reference myself; it's been some time since I took a grammar class.
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Coincidentally, after reading this a few days ago, we had a Punctuation lecture today (I study English at university). I showed this to my teacher and she absolutely loved it. She said she would link to it on the website and that she might use parts of it in her lectures from now on XD
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I'm definitely using this for help when I write papers!
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