7. Punctuation

Punctuation matters. It does not simply tell the reader when to start and stop. It organises the text into meaningful units. Getting it wrong can seriously damage the sense of the text. To see the power of punctuation, look at this example from Lynne Truss’s book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves:

Dear Jack,

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feeling whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy — will you let me be yours?

Jill

Dear Jack,

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours, Jill¹

It makes you think, doesn’t it?

7.1 Apostrophes

This is the most common problem in written English. One can see apostrophes in the wrong places in shops, theatre programmes, adverts, newspapers, restaurant menus and more. There is always some public debate going on about whether we should retain apostrophes in the language or abolish them because so few people seem capable of using them properly. I would like to ban them; German gets on fine without them, but the fact is that they still exist, and we still expect you to be able to put them in the right places.

A colleague of mine in the English Department asked her colleagues what they thought was the biggest problem in students’ written work. Wrong use of apostrophes was overwhelmingly at the top of the list. The reason this annoys markers so much is that the rules are pretty simple. Here they are:

APPROPRIATE APOSTROPHE USE:

Signalling possession by adding ’s to a singular noun: Susan’s book, King’s College, the boy’s father, the woman’s coat, the banana’s skin, the piano’s keys.

• If the noun or name already ends in s then go ahead and add ’s as normal: Weber’s theory, Hymes’s measured verse, the bus’s driver.

• A plural noun ending in s takes an apostrophe after the s: the boys’ fathers, the Trobrianders’ gardens, the Nuers’ cattle.

• A plural noun not ending in s takes ’s: women’s rights, the children’s school.

• Get into the habit of taking a moment to check if the apostrophe should be before or after the s every time you use one. Do not be tempted to tuck the apostrophe into a name that already has an s: Hyme’s narratives, or into possessive pronouns (see below).

Indicating a missing letter in a contraction such as don’t, won’t, wouldn’t, isn’t, it’s. However, these contractions are informal and should not appear in academic essays, except when they appear in quotations from texts. Write out these phrases in full: do not, will not, would not, is not, it is, etc. Note however that ‘cannot’ is one word.

DO NOT USE AN APOSTROPHE FOR:

Plurals of nouns ending in vowels such as banana’s, piano’s, tomato’s instead of bananas, pianos, tomatoes. This is known as the ‘greengrocer’s apostrophe’, but crops up everywhere. There is no excuse for this; it is just plain wrong.

Possessive pronouns such as hers, theirs, its, ours. These are complete words, like his and mine.

It’s and its are commonly confused, but this really annoys your marker, so get this one right. It’s should never appear in your written work. If you mean it is, then write this out in full. If you mean belonging to it, then there is no apostrophe. Run a search on your essay and correct any it’s that you find lurking in your text. Also look out for who’s and whose.