Everyone knows that the world’s material resources — food, water, oil — are distributed unequally, but few realize that the same is true for punctuation. Take quotation marks: Some forms of writing, ...

The punctuation mark that annoys people the most is, without a doubt, the apostrophe. Whole books have been written lamenting atrocities like “five carrot’s and three kiwi’s” (for the record, that ...

You have /5 articles left. Sign up for a free account or log in. Everyone knows that there’s only one use for single quotation marks, and that’s to denote a quote ...

If you’ve ever encountered ads for “fresh” ground beef or “pizza” by the slice, you know all too well the scourge of inappropriate quotation marks. And no one mocks misplaced punctuation better than ...

Picture this: A music reviewer makes a reference to the song “Space Truckin’” by Deep Purple. You want to quote him on it. Specifically, you want to quote a sentence in which the writer just happened ...

If you ever see a typography lover, smeared with blood, bellowing while holding a steaming human heart above his head, the point of contention was very probably the use of smart quotes versus dumb ...

Among the enduring mysteries of modern life are the formula for Coca-Cola Classic, football’s pass interference rules and the significance of quotation marks in the newspaper. To many minds, the last ...

A question mark ( ? ) is used to close a direct question. (What time is it?) Do not use a question mark with an indirect question. (He asked if we knew the time.) Put a question mark inside closing ...

An exclamation point ( ! ) is used to end a sentence expressing strong emotion or commands (Stop!), and may be used to close questions that are meant to convey extreme emotion (What were you thinking!