“People don’t know why they get so upset about language,” David Crystal told me recently, over Skype from his home in Wales. “ ‘Potato’s,’ with an apostrophe ‘S,’ ” he offered, as an example of the ...

More and more frequently, polished writing raises suspicion. The everyday techniques taught in grammar school are being ...

A moment's hesitation... Yes, a full stop here—but shouldn't there be a comma there? Or would a hyphen be better? Punctuation can be a nuisance; it is often simply neglected. Wrong! The most recent ...

In the 3rd century BCE, the Greeks wrote without any spaces, punctuations or distinction between capital letters or lowercase. To the modern eye this would look like undecipherable code: just capital ...

When reading a classic book, we tend to pay attention to the themes, the characters, and the story. We say the words aloud. We notice everything, in fact, except for one crucial thing: the punctuation ...

If you don't know how to punctuate an adverb clause or couldn't advise someone when to use a semicolon rather than a colon—even with a gun to your head—consider the two standards for punctuation in ...

Are you manic about misplaced commas? Apoplectic over rogue apostrophes? Distressed by the disappearing question mark? You don’t have to be an outspoken member of the punctuation police to know the ...