Punctuation

Punctuation

Punctuation: It is a literary device which aims at showing how words are grouped together for convenience and clear meaning. If punctuation marks are badly used, they badly affect the meaning of the sentence. E.g.

(a)  The teacher said the student is stupid,

(b)  The teacher, said the student “is stupid”

1. Full stop (.) is used at the end of sentence and in abbreviations
2. The comma (,) is used to indicate a pause before continuation of the sentence.

iii.              Question marks (?) are used of the end of a question.

1. The Apostrophe (‘) is used for shortened words and to show ownership.
2. The hyphen (-) is used for joining compound word; e.g. bye-laws.
3. The colon (:) is used to introduce a list e.g. the chief ingredient of the soup include; moat, fish vegetable, pepper and salt.

vii. Semi colon (;) is used separate the parts of sentences that are complicated.

viii.The exclamation mark (!) is used to show emotion for example: when one is hurt, surprise. Angry etc

ix. The quotation mark (“ ”) are inverted commas used to indicate a quotation.