1) Terminology
. full stop
? question mark
! exclamation mark
- dash
; semi-colon
: colon
, comma
( ) (round) brackets or parentheses
‘ ’ inverted commas or quotation marks
‘ apostrophe
- hyphen
. . . dot, dot, dot, or suspension points
For letters:
- capital initials: as in Language, Houses, Doctor …
- block writing: as in LANGUAGE, HOUSES, DOCTOR …
- upper case: A, B, C, D, E, F, G …
- lower case: a, b, c, d, e, f, g …
2) Have you ever been taught how to use punctuation marks in Spanish? Have you ever had systematic practice on this and writing in general in Spanish lessons? Spanish language syllabuses have not traditionally incorporated this, but a huge amount of ‘curious’ things, to put it mildly. If you like, see this year’s Comunidad de Madrid exam for very young students, for example, which, incidentally, was issued on the Net before the exam took place – a political manoeuvre? Hm. Or, if you want to see how the authorities make kids hate maths, look at the Mathematics exam, which includes pictures and apparently real situations to look ‘modern’ but whose problems can do without them and vice versa, etc. (Incidentally, I know the teacher.) These so-called ‘instrumental subjects’ are not normally taught as instrumental (for instance, to be able to write about History). It is certainly ‘a long story’, and certainly not just some/many/most teachers’ fault. Our problem here is: how can a grown-up be taught to ‘write’, even in their own mother tongue?
3) Of course we are not going to deal here with the use (or lack) of punctuation in, say, poetry, but with most contexts in everyday life; and we are not going to deal with italics, bold type, paragraphs, underlining, page layout and other features typical to writing, but just the most significant points about the main punctuation signs, typical mistakes and the use of capital letters.
4) Punctuation rules are in a way ‘universal’. People who make good use of punctuation marks in their own language are good at using punctuation in a foreign language. But this does not mean that Spanish books, newspapers and magazines are usually printed with good punctuation throughout, or that different authors and moments do not bring out different results, or that all the uses of all punctuation marks are the same in different languages.
Many Spanish people think it is little more than a question of style, which is a wrong view as we could see through numerous examples. What is true is that not all cases are equally important. There is certainly some room for style, personal preferences, optional signs and the like - cases about which we are not directly concerned here.
As with language in general, there are many more misconceptions. For example, people really get used to wrongly-conceived uses, the practices in some cases absurdly becoming almost rules, even though they contradict the essence of punctuation (compensating for some of the intrinsic disadvantages of writing, including the absence of intonation and emphasis, the absence of the interlocutor and, in general, all the information that is conveyed at so many levels by voice and face-to-face communication). Three examples of these ‘pseudo-rules’ in Spanish are the use of a colon after the introductory formula in letters, the almost generalized absence of a comma before or after the conjunction y (while it is usually sensible - and compulsory if we understand what punctuation is about - to use one), and the generalized use of capital initial letters or even block writing in many kinds of lists (even in our cloze-questions in exams, which are about English, and where, if you write a capital initial, it implies that the word in context is written like that!). If you observe the punctuation of an English text next time you will notice that commas often come either before or after - or both before and after - ‘and’, and it makes a lot of sense. It certainly does not help immediate understanding if you never write one. A typical Spanish example:
A primera hora, tenemos inglés los lunes y los martes tenemos matemáticas.
The only comma in the sentence is not only non-obligatory and unnecesary , but should perhaps be better avoided because there is not a syntactic ‘break’ or parenthesis. Supposedly, in Spanish, when you begin with something like an adverbial, you write a comma afterwards, but this is neither universal, nor necessary, nor necessarily clarifying, nor always observed. The origin of the ‘rule’ is that Spanish sentences most often begin with the subject, but this is false in well over half of the cases. But the main thing in our example (and we could give hundreds of common ones) is that not using a comma after lunes (simply because it comes before y!) makes up, at first, this picture in your mind:
A primera hora tenemos inglés los lunes y los martes.
So, what is the point about good punctuation? First of all, it should be systematic rather than capricious. It is the ability to ‘naturally’ (‘without thinking about it’) write with the (mainly) universal conventions that make a given text more directly intelligible, which do not confuse the reader and which obey linguistic logic. But most Spanish people need conscious practice and training if we want them to make use of good punctuation. If the punctuation is basically wrong, why punctuate at all? Why not avoid all punctuation then? Similarly, if the supposedly easy rules for using the acute accent in Spanish are not systematic, why using any accents at all? At the very least, not using any would be systematic. Someone writing Andres sabe un monton may show they do not care about now to use acute accents. Someone writing Andres sabe un montón definitely shows they cannot use this diacritic sign.
5) If we understand punctuation in terms of hierarchy, linguistic logic and comprehensibility, the basic thing about punctuation is knowing where a sentence finishes. The typical mistake is finishing it with a comma, but the end of a sentence is shown, primarily, with a full stop, and, secondarily, with a question or exclamation mark, a dash (in one of its uses), a semi-colon, or a colon (again, in one of its uses). The employment of the three dots, which may end a sentence as well, is very restricted in English. It is therefore important to ‘feel’ where the sentence (not a just the main or the subordinate clause) finishes. A sentence gravitates around only one verb form (which is almost always explicit), even if it contains more, and a subject, unless it is omitted but known - the omission of the subject, except in imperatives, only takes place marginally in English. That we Spaniards do not generally understand the difference between the four basic syntactic units (word, phrase, clause and sentence) is proved by many simple facts. For example, most linguists and language teachers do not systematically differentiate the terminology at all. Relative clauses are usually called oraciones de relativo by ‘experts’. But who speaks like this?:
‘Que me diste el otro día’ ‘Donde nací yo’ ‘¿Del que no tienes receta?’ ‘Que no viene en mi único libro de cocina’.
Don’t you think the oraciones or sentences could be these?: ‘Este es uno de los bollos de tu zona que me diste el otro día.’ ‘Los hacen en el pueblo donde nací yo.’ ‘¿Y es un dulce del que no tienes receta?’ ‘No, la receta es una que no viene en mi único libro de cocina’.
Similarly, those ‘experts’ sometimes call (and almost always called) Cuando vengas an oración subordinada, etc. But, much more illustratively, one of the basic problems in Spanish linguistics is that frase is normally used - by both linguists and the general public - for ‘phrase’, ‘clause’ and ‘sentence’:
· un pájaro de mal agüero (a noun phrase)
· por no haber hecho las cosas a tiempo (a subordinate clause)
· Te lo dije. (a sentence)
Thus, every now and then, teachers at all levels of education have traditionally spent years teaching the new terminology (sintagma, proposición, oración, etc), but the names never get fixed or understood, let alone incorporated by the population at large. On the other hand, most English speakers understand the three concepts, which is both the cause and the result of their systematic use of the three different names. It is sad to know that the reason for the Spanish situation - which makes us not understand what a sentence is - is, partly, that Spanish authors have not traditionally accessed foreign sources other than French (Spanish linguists used to be taught a little French), so we are still today constantly just translating/copying the terms that the French invent, but, unfortunately, the French happen to be just as bad linguists as the Spaniards. For so many years, at school and university, I attended so many lessons the main purspose of which was to replace the former syntactic terminology.
Look at some different sentence structures and lengths:
· Wait. (1 sentence)
· Please wait. (1 sentence)
· Watch out! (1 sentence)
· ‘Who’ll come?’ ‘I will.’ (2 sentences)
· ‘Your first name?’ ‘Jane.’ (2 sentences)
· I didn’t really see him ¾ it was my father who saw him. (2 sentences).
· I’ve recently had a serious operation. That’s why I’m always at home. (2 sentences)
· As soon as we got to Gatwick Airport ¾ we were travelling to Iceland via London ¾ , we made several phone calls, which took us a very long time, especially because everybody was worried for us because of the terrorist attack. (2 sentences, one of which, rather complex, is enclosed within the other by means of dashes - but brackets would serve the same purpose.)
But, as we have said, the typical mistake is using a comma to finish a sentence. All the commas in the following text should be full stops, since there are seven sentences.
· *They had five children, the eldest was a girl, she was 19, her father was much older than her, they all had blond hair, they lived in a luxurious villa not far from the mountains and the town, the villa had a magnificent garden.
But, as is usually the case with short, simple sentences, some of them can be made into clauses if you change the structure a little. This happens very frequently with personal pronouns, which can be transformed into relative pronouns within the same sentence. This is often more natural, especially in writing. In our example, the seven sentences may become three:
· They had five children, the eldest of whom was a 19-year-old girl. Her father was much older than her. They all had blonde hair and lived in a luxurious villa, which had a magnificent garden, not far from the mountains and the town. (2 sentences joined with ‘and’ share the subject, this being the reason why we have to postpone using the full stop.)
More examples of the use of a full stop or a comma according to the kind of pronoun:
· She had a male relative. He was the owner of the most fantastic castle I’ve ever seen. = She had a male relative who was the owner of the most fantastic castle I’ve ever seen.
· They had three dogs. None of them was two years old yet. = They had three dogs, none of +which was two years old yet.
Something very similar happens with other pairs of words or phrases. Let us give Spanish examples now:
· Era bastante tímido y acomplejado, y no tenía apenas amigos. Por eso / Por esa razón / Por lo tanto salía muy poco. (2 sentences [we are no longer taking into account coordination], the second of which could also be preceded by a semi-colon, since the ideas are strongly connected) = Era bastante tímido y acomplejado, y no tenía apenas amigos, por lo que/cual salía muy poco. (1 period) = Era bastante tímido y acomplejado, y no tenía apenas amigos, razón por la que salía muy poco. (idem)
· Era bastante tímido y acomplejado, y no tenía apenas amigos. A pesar de ello/eso, salía mucho. (2 sentences, as far as basic punctuation is concerned.) = Era bastante tímido y acomplejado, y no tenía apenas amigos, a pesar de lo cual salía mucho. (1 sentence) = Aunque era bastante tímido y acomplejado, y no tenía apenas amigos, salía mucho. (1 sentence.)
On the other hand, the following are not sentences:
a) the bearded, red-haired man I was speaking to when you came into the living-room
b) I didn’t like
c) is salt, not sugar
d) whatever you may want to take or use
They are parts of sentences (of different kinds). In (a), all we have is a complex noun phrase with ‘man’ as the nucleus, and, as such, it can be - to name only three typical functions - the subject, or the direct or indirect object of a sentence:
· The bearded, red-haired man I was speaking to when you came into the living-room didn’t answer any of my questions. (subject)
· Do you know the bearded, red-haired man I was speaking to when you came into the living-room? (direct object)
· Give it to the bearded, red-haired man I was speaking to when you came into the living-room. (indirect object)
There are of course infinite ways to complete (b), (c), and (d). These are simple, short possibilities:
b) ‘I didn’t like it.’ (After: ‘Why didn’t you take the sandwich?’)
c) It is salt, not sugar.
d) Take or use whatever you may want to take or use.
Some connectors always come at the beginning of sentences, and usually before a comma at the same time (On the other hand, Similarly, First of all, In conclusion, Therefore, Furthermore, In addition, ...). A few, like however, in the meantime (or meanwhile) and for example, are best used between a semi-colon and a comma:
· The shopping centre is small; however, I usually find everything I need there. (2 sentences)
· I can do all the ironing; meanwhile, you could pack both suitcases.
· I like all kinds of fruit; for example, oranges, melons and pineapples. (in theory, 2 sentences, with the second subject+verb - ‘I like’ - omitted; but, partly because they are omitted, they can be regarded as one, and the punctuation here is actually fairly free)
Spanish mientras (one of our ‘black sheep’, but less black than hasta) can certainly throw light on what is and is not a sentence. There are two ‘mientras’. The first is a conjunction (= mientras que) of two possible types: time (English ‘while/as’) or contrast (English ‘whereas/while’); in both these cases, it introduces a subordinate clause. The second is a connector (= mientas tanto; English ‘meanwhile, in the meantime’) used at the beginning of a sentence (therefore, after a full stop - or semi-colon - and before a comma, as the intonation proves). The thing is that, because Spaniards are not good at using and interpreting punctuation marks, watch the Spanish news and you will realize that there is almost always a confusion between the following two cases, which, as usual, could be avoided by synonyms (mientras que and mientas tanto):
· El Presidente se ha reunido con los reyes del país del sol naciente, mientras Sus Majestades los Reyes de España se han encontrado con el Primer Ministro nipón.
· El Presidente se ha reunido con los reyes del país del sol naciente. Mientras, Sus Majestades los Reyes de España se han encontrado con el Primer Ministro nipón.
The punctuation here shows the two possibilities, but we can figure out that in at least 90% of the cases the news-reader can actually see, for both cases, the punctuation in the first example. The result is that they do not know which intonation to use. This is most obvious when ‘Mientras’ is at the beginning or at the end of the news or paragraph, when they can say (not see) this at times: Hablando de otra cosa… mientras, la Esteban se ha tenido que operar. La Campanario está cada día más guapa (‘Paro cardíaco de otoñinvierno’, digo ‘Corazón, no me dejes de ver Corazón Corazón, pero ponte una coraza de melón, corazones’, o no sé qué).
6) The second important thing about punctuation - after finishing a sentence with a full stop or question mark, etc -, which has to do with the second typical mistake, is this: commas are not used in isolation - they are used to enclose a syntactic break and, therefore, are used in pairs: one comma is for opening the break, and the second for closing it. This is not straightforwardly obvious.
Let us begin with the ‘obvious’ cases and by stating that people very often either use the first or the second comma alone, and that, because of the essence of commas, it is much better to use neither than only one. In fact, very often neither comma is as good an option as both commas. What is definitely wrong is using only one:
a) *I was really willing to listen to some heavy metal and as my mother wasn’t at home, I played my favourite AC/DC CD very loudly.
*I was really willing to listen to some heavy metal and, as my mother wasn’t at home I played my favourite AC/DC CD very loudly.
b) *I was playing some very loud music but when the house-maid came, I turned it off.
*I was playing some very loud music but, when the house-maid came I turned it off.
c) *He liked, whenever he had the time and the company playing boardgames.
*He liked whenever he had the time and the company, playing boardgames.
d) *I spend my free time reading the newspaper, which I like very much and doing some gardening.
*I spend my free time reading the newspaper which I like very much, and doing some gardening.
e) *This boy, whose parents are very rich doesn’t even have a TV set or computer.
*This boy whose parents are very rich, doesn’t even have a TV set or computer.
f) *She has, for better or worse quit her job.
*She has for better or worse, quit her job.
g) *She had, also at that time the most sophisticated car in the neighbourhood.
*She had also at that time, the most sophisticated car in the neighbourhood.
These are the right versions:
a) I was really willing to listen to some heavy metal and, as my mother wasn’t at home, I played my favourite AC/DC CD very loudly.
b) I was playing some very loud music but, when the house-maid came, I turned it off.
c) He liked, whenever he had the time and the company, playing boardgames.
d) I spend my free time reading the newspaper, which I like very much, and doing some gardening.
e) This boy, whose parents are very rich, doesn’t even have a TV set or computer.
f) She has, for better or worse, quit her job.
g) She had, also at that time, the most sophisticated car in the neighbourhood.
In (a), as you can see, the beginning of the syntactic parenthesis is just after ‘and’, which is quite natural.
In (b), another possibility is this:
· I was playing some very loud music, but, when the house-maid came, I turned it off.
In this case, the second and the third comma ‘go together’, or play the same role, whereas the first comma is hierarchically superior: the first period is ‘I was playing some very loud music’; the second period is ‘but, when the house-maid came, I turned it off’; and the sub-period within the second period is ‘when the house-maid came’, which is what you introduce in the middle of ‘but I turned it off’.
The rest are more ‘obvious’ cases of introducing a ‘break’ withing the sentence. The last two examples are, specifically, elements of the sentence (phrases) which are between commas because the typical ‘word’ order of English is altered. Normally, this is due to emphasis. The common order of elements is this:
f) She has quit her job(,) for better or worse.
g) She had the most sophisticated car in the neighbourhood also at that time.
(= She also had the most sophisticated car in the neighbourhood at that time.)
And you also have the option to begin the sentences with these movable phrases, preferrably (but not importantly) with a comma after them.
And what are the cases which are not obvious and apparently do not follow the rule? In my view, there are two.
First and foremost, we often do not really use the first or the second comma
a) because it coincides with the end of the previous sentence or with the end of the same sentence, respectively (and therefore there is already, for example, a full stop);
b) or because the second comma of the first break coincides with the first comma of a second, consecutive break.
Both cases, especially the former, are extremely common. This essay contains a lot of instances. I have just written ‘In my view, there are two’. Hierarchically, the main period is ‘There are two’, but, as I have chosen to add ‘in my view’ at the beginning, I’ve had to use only the ‘second comma’ - the ‘first’ coincides with the question mark in the previous sentence, that is, with the sentence limit, and language - writing, actually - is not usually made ‘logical’ up to the extent of using two or three consecutive punctuation marks. We only only consecutive punctuation marks when they belong to a different ‘field’: typically, quotation marks are always used where required, regardless of coincidence with, say, a full stop, question mark or comma. Let us now see examples of both (a) and (b) with the addition of the extra comma (underlined) that is not to be used but illustrates our point:
a) *He came to work late. , Apparently, he had overslept.
*What a coincidence, Sue! , Oh, you are not Sue, are you?
*She passed all her examinations, which made her very proud,.
*She’s her sister, I think,.
b) *She arrives home at ten or so, but, on Fridays,, after going clubbing, she comes real late. [The possibilities here could be further complicated, but our only point is that both ‘on Fridays’ and ‘after going clubbing’ are syntactic parentheses which, because they share one of their boundaries, also share one of the commas - the one in the middle, of course]
*We don’t usually go the opera, which upsets me,, but at least we don’t go to watch football matches either. [The comma preceding the clause of contrast with ‘but’ coincides with the second comma of the relative clause, so only one is used. Of course, the ‘but’-clause doesn’t take a second comma at the end because it coincides with the full stop - see (a) above]
Similarly:
· Apparently, he’d overslept. + When I saw him, he’d overslept. ®
Apparently, when I saw him, he’d overslept.
To sum up, look at this good use of two commas (not none, or one, or three):
· I don’t like many sports, although I do like tennis, but that day I didn’t even feel like playing tennis.
And the second case in which commas are not used ‘in pairs’ is lists. The reason is that, in this case, we are just separating equal-status elements. Rather than items in a list, we could think of simply ‘same-rank elements’ in the sentence. The last element is normally introduced by ‘and’:
· We bought some poatoes, half a kilo of bananas and just two pears.
· We did some shopping, came back and had a nap.
· David, Donald and Daniel are triplets.
· There was everybody: Danna, Donna, Doris, Dylan, David, Donald, Daniel, etc.
The fact that here a comma is not normally used before ‘and’ (but is optional in English because there are more than two elements) further makes us wrongly believe that a comma is never used before ‘and’. We have already seen why it is actually so often used. To sum up, there are two basic reasons for its use before ‘and’, the first also being a reason for its use after ‘and’:
a) the comma indicates one of the two boundaries of a syntactic parenthesis;
b) the comma makes the sentence clearer by not making you think that the element after the comma is at the same hierarchic level as the one before the comma.
Some examples of commas before and/or after ‘and’:
· This disease affected Somalia, Ethiopia and, to a lesser extent, the Sudan. (3 ‘blocks’ or items)
· This disease affected Somalia, Algeria, Liberia, countries in the south of the continent like Lesotho and Zimbabwe, and the Congo. (5 blocks, the fourth being exemplified)
· This disease affected Somalia, Algeria, Liberia, countries in the south of the continent like Lesotho and Zimbabwe, and, to a lesser extent, the Congo. (5 blocks, the fourth being exemplified and the fifth limited in degree)
Curiously enough for a Spaniard, logic and clarity dictate that, before ‘and’, a comma tends to be more common than no comma. This is simply because, very often, when we use ‘and’ we are not giving the last element of a list, without changing the structure or the status of the previous elements. In fact, we usually do change the structure after ‘and’. Compare:
· We went because Robert insisted and Rebecca didn’t oppose to the idea. [two equal-status pieces: the two clauses that express the two reasons]
· I gave two presents to Paula, and Paul looked very happy about it. [a comma is used because ‘Paula’ and ‘Paul’ do not share the same syntactic status; confusion is avoided]
All we have said about ‘and’, in terms of punctuation, applies to ‘or’; for example:
· You can leave the keys in the mail box or, if you think someone could steal them, under the doormat.
As you have seen through the examples, commas are usual when you break the order of sentence elements (quite clearly in, for example, verb + object: I don’t drink, except at lunch, any water / I don’t drink, believe it or not, any water). Thus, if adverbs or adverbial expressions are placed in an unusual position in the sentence they are enclosed in commas:
· His brother has, since his wedding, not been seen at the club.
· They tried, in spite of my advice, to climb the mountain.
Other adverbs/adverbials which qualify the whole sentence also require commas:
· He has, oddly enough, never spoken about it again. (= He has never spoken about it again, which is very odd)
· She has, to my surprise, married him after all. (= She has married him after all, at which I am very surprised)
Notice the following example, which does not only illustrate the use of commas (in pairs), but also a typical case of precision and linguistic logic, arguably only taken into account in English:
· She was angry with, but at the same time sorry for, her little brother.
Subordinate clauses are often separated with commas, especially when they come before the main clause, but this is sometimes not clarifying or important. In English, they are seldom really obligatory and rather a matter of nuances. Yet, they sometimes do seem more relevant. Compare the use or usefulness of - respectively - the absence and presence of a comma before these clauses of reason:
· I don’t hate him because he’s beaten me. [I hate him because he’s quite self-centred, for example.]
· I don’t hate him, since/as/because he’s always been kind to me.
The comma is compulsory in absolute constructions, which are like subordinate clauses (normally) at the beginning of sentences but lack any verbs whatsoever, and in clauses made up of/around a past participle, a present participle (-ing form) or an adjective (adjectival phrases which are non-defining). Examples:
· Dinner over, they rose to go back to the sitting-room.
· Happy to be there, the little girl smiled at everybody.
· Upset, he’d go look for another TMT. [see below]
· Defeated by the enemy, the troops withdrew at once.
· Turning around, the old woman could finally see her long-awaited friend.
· Having been given a life sentence, the convict sank his head into his coat collar.
· Jones, softly opening the door, peered out into the street.
They are typical of writing, rather than speech, and apparently disappearing in Spanish: in fact, when, for instance, TV people read them, they make the intonation of separate sentences (remember we don’t usually understand this concept and confuse such different things as a comma and a full stop: the very basics); just take a commercial shown in the spring of 2009, which went more or less like this [but I’ve just heard an instance in the TVE news]: ¿Qué haría Bud Spencer si se encontrara que el cajero no funciona? The answer comes: Cabreado [falling intonation]. Se iría a buscar otro. Well, that is the actual intonation and the idea the reading conveys, but what the actor is meant to read is this: ‘Cabreado [rising intonation], se iría a buscar otro.’ Thus, commas and full stops have more to do with intonation than with pauses! - when we begin a sentence with, for example, a subordinate clause or a conector, we normal people - unlike TV people - end this first period with rising intonation; if we didn’t, we would all sound like Jesús Hermida all the time. However, almost everybody in Spain would tell you that, basically, commas and full stops are a question of how long you pause, which is absolutely wrong (of course they do not give you the measurements), but the thing is that, even if it were true, it would much more be a question of hierarchy and linguistic logic, which in speech relies on other factors, including intonation.
Vocatives also require commas. Our mistake is either using no punctuation marks or, at the beginning of letters - at least traditionally -, use a colon and start a new paragraph, which you may do in Spanish if you happen to like it. These are correct examples:
· John, no more jokes, please!
· Mum and Dad, tell me exactly when we’re leaving.
· See you, Diana.
Distinguish the meaning of these Spanish sentences, usually confused:
· Marianito, no nos trae cuenta. (the elliptical subject may be eso)
· Marianito no nos trae cuenta. (Marianito is the subject)
Another good use/absence of a comma is for differentiating questions with ‘or’ which require a ‘yes/no’ answer from those which imply a choice - again, this rule is not observed in Spanish, but, again, if you comply with it, the better for your reader, and nobody will object. Compare:
· ‘Do you want coffee or tea?’ [rising intonation at the end] ‘Yes, either is OK.’
· ‘Do you want coffee, or tea?’ [rising intonation after ‘coffee’, and falling intonation at the end] ‘Coffee, please.’
· Do you like meeting new people or learning a foreign language? Work with us! You’ll get to know lots of Moroccans.
· Do you like meeting new people, or learning a foreign language? Which job you should choose depends on the answer. For example, if you’d like to learn German, the latter job is a good choice for you.
· ‘Have you got two or three 5-p coins?’ ‘Yes, here you are.’
· ‘Have you got two, or three 5-p coins?’ ‘I’ve got three.’
The comma is, in most cases, optional between consecutive adjectives before a noun (attributive position), but obligatory between consecutive adjectives following a verb and not before a noun (predicative position). More importantly, adjectives of the first type do not take ‘and’, unless they’re of the same kind, e.g. colour: a black and white shirt. Examples of both types:
a) a beautiful, tall, blonde, short-haired Greek woman
(= a beautiful tall blonde short-haired Greek woman)
b) The Greek woman was beautiful, tall and slim, and had short(,) curly(,) fair hair.
Perhaps the worst use of a comma that you sometimes come across everywhere is for simply separating the subject from the rest of the sentence (when there is not actually a need for it because of a break). Always avoid such commas as these in Spanish/English:
· Más de mil cámaras de T.V., vigilan por su seguridad. (Madrid Underground)
· Daniel, no sabe a qué carta quedarse. David, sí tiene las ideas claras.
· Los del otro día / Los que vinieron el otro día preguntando por ti, han vuelto esta mañana. (Mind you, many are in favour of this use.)
But of course use them here:
· Daniel, who’s very indecisive, doesn’t know which version to believe. David, his brother, does know what to do. (‘his brother’ is an example of phrase in apposition, which always requires a pair of commas)
Another important use of the comma in any language is showing that the verb has been omitted but we have a sentence, not just a part. It can be seen in, for example, many proverbs and other idiomatic expressions:
· A mal tiempo, buena cara. (pon is replaced by the comma)
· El mejor alcalde, el rey. (es is replaced by the comma – this also why you should not use both the comma and es.)
Unfortunately, again, what you usually come across is either neither the comma nor the verb, or both at the same time, especially with ser:
· *La mejor distracción, es un buen libro. (a real slogan for reading!)
· *El último que apague la luz. (a play by Ozores)
7) Use a colon rather than another end-of-sentence mark when there is a strong connection between the two consecutive sentences; for example, for expressing the reason or a clear explanation:
· They were the best of friends: they’d known each other since they were born, had always liked the same things and shared everything. (explanation)
· He was inconsolable: he had lost all his family at the explosion. (cause)
Use a colon after certain words/phrases, like the following, or before a ‘vertical, item-by-item’ list. Also, in some cases where you are exemplifying but don’t use like, such as, including, etc (I like all kinds of vegetables: carrots, potatoes, beans, aubergines, watercress, lettuce, and so on). Furthermore, for specifying in sentences like ‘Two new models were shown: the Rumba 69 and the Samba 96’; but don’t use a colon in these cases:
· The options were: go by car or go by taxi.
· I saw: your mother, my brother, Jane and all our friends.
A use which is worth mentioning is when you illustrate, explain or specify a word or phrase, usually a noun, and usually in a title, slogan and the like:
· The Second World War: immediate causes [a sub-division in a history book]
· Punctuation: colon [a sub-division]
· Croatia: the Mediterranean as it was / used to be [a slogan]
· Picasso: the Biography of a Genius [a possible title for a book]
But, as usual, we wrongly substitute [sic] a comma again (as for full stops, semi-colons, etc):
· Andorra, no sabrás con qué quedarte
which is an example of ... maybe a line in a poem in which one addresses that little country and tell it/them what follows the comma. Actually, it looks as if Andorra were, say, a personal name, like África (in Spanish), France (in French), Montserrat (in Catalan), Cuba (in English/Spanish) and so many others.
8) The semi-colon is a lesser stop than the full stop. You are normally told that it is used between grammatically complete sentences and often found where a full stop would be too complete a break. More interestingly, it can be best seen from a hierarchical point of view: for example, you don’t want to use a full stop, but if you use a comma, the hierarchy is not clearly seen. Look at this wrong example:
· *The family is going for a picnic, father carries the rugs, mother, the food, and the children, the rest of the things.
These are the primary separations:
· the family is going for a picnic // father carries the rugs // mother carries the food // the children carry the rest of the things
The sentences are so closely connected that you don’t use full stops. But if you uses commas, you don’t differentiate this level of separation from the real level of commas (in this case, to indicate omission of redundant verb forms). So the best option is the semi-colon:
· The family is going for a picnic; father carries the rugs; mother, the food; and the children, the rest of the things.
Look at this other correct example:
· So many people came to our party. We invited my sister-in-law, who’s desperately looking for a boyfriend; Jack, who brought a lot of his colleagues; Hannah; Simon, my distant cousin; his wife, Martha; Luke and all his sisters; Anthony and his many friends; and Barbara, the girl next door.
We want to mention the people that we invited (the complex direct object), but some of these elements have an aposition or a non-defining relative clause, or are compounded by two elements; therefore, we do not show just one level in the hierarchy, but the two levels: we specify the first level by means of semi-colons, and the second by means of commas. We wouldn’t have needed the semi-colons if we had had only one level:
· (...) We invited my sister-in-law, Jack, Hannah, Simon, his wife, Luke, all of Luke’s sisters, Anthony, Anthony’s many friends(,) and Barbara.
In cases like this, perhaps an easier, less accurate rule for the semi-colon is this: use it when the items in a list are syntactically complex.
9) The dash is very helpful and frequently used in English. Hardly any Spaniards, however, use it, even in this language. You can use it in the same way as round brackets, with one difference: you use the second bracket even before a full stop, but the second dash is not used at the end of a sentence. The second important use of the dash (always only one in this case) is for replacing the colon. What you do not use the dash for in English is direct speech, as we will see.
In principle, the dash is longer than the hyphen, but you can also type a sort of hyphen as a dash, providing you leave blank spaces:
· What a big-headed guy! (a compulsory example of a hyphen, which, except for its form, has nothing to do with a dash)
· When I saw him there ¾ I hadn’t seen him for ages ¾ I got quite a shock: he’d lost about 100 pounds! (two ‘proper’ dashes, with basically the same function as parentheses)
· When I saw him there - I hadn’t seen him for ages - I got quite a shock: he’d lost about 100 pounds! (two shorter dashes, equally correct, which look like hyphens)
It is very useful to use dashes or parentheses for clarifying how many elements there really are in a list. How many people came to the party this time?
· Vinieron Antonio, mi profesor, María y Vanessa.
Of course this really implies four people; if you mean three people, your teacher’s name being Antonio, write this:
· Vinieron Antonio (mi profesor), María y Vanessa.
After all, you cannot use intonation or count with your fingers in writing! So, come on, be one of the few Spaniards to use punctuation for what it is meant!
10) The previous paragraph somehow illustrates the use of the exclamation mark. But by no means would all - or most - English speakers have used it. In fact, the main thing for you to know about this mark is that, compared with other languages, English makes little use of it. In other words, when you do use it in English, you show that you are really being emotional. Therefore, using an imperative, for example, is not in itself enough reason.
11) The punctuation of direct speech
There are here significant differences with Spanish and other languages. As you are about to see, dashes, for example, are not employed. This accounts for some of the advantages of English specific punctuation. A good example of some of the advantages, including those for direct speech within direct speech, can be seen in a story by Oscar Wilde I usually recommend to intermediate students: The Devoted Friend.
The actual words of direct speech are a sentence (or more) and must be punctuated as such, with capital letters, commas, question and exclamation marks and whatever is necessary:
· He said, ‘Why did you do that, when I’d told you not to?’
The introductory words, such as She said, He asked, cried Derek, whether at the end, middle or beginning of the general sentence, must be separated from the actual words spoken by commas if no other stop is used:
· ‘Where did they go?’ I asked.
· ‘What on earth,’ Trish asked, ‘did they reply?’
· ‘Follow me at once!’ cried the leader.
The actual words of direct speech are enclosed in inverted commas including all the necessary punctuation marks. Inverted commas are opened and closed, and they show direction, so it is more difficult for you ‘to get lost’ in English than in other languages when you are reading a text full of dialogues: it is easier to always know whether it is the author or a character that is speaking. The words of each new speaker should start a new paragraph:
‘Not a whisper,’ she murmured.
‘Are you sure’
‘Absolutely. Why?’
‘I just wanted to know,’ he said.
(Dashes are thus left for their typical uses.) If the story that a character is telling is divided into several paragraphs, only the opening inverted comma is used for each new paragraph - but the closing quotation mark is used at the end. Much more commonly, if inverted commas are required within the actual words of direct speech, then double inverted commas are used:
‘Why did he she say “I’m mad about Charlie” when I was opening the door?’ asked Charlie.
‘Oh. What a good question!’ Victor replied. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t important. Anyway, I think her actual words were “I’m mad about Charlie”.’
In principle, American English uses double inverted commas exactly wherever British English uses single inverted commas, and vice versa.
12) When we talk about language itself, italics, inverted commas, round brackets (indicating possible omission) and slashes (slanting strokes, indicating options) are frequently used. Because this essay is metalinguistic, you have already had plenty of instances of italics and inverted commas used for mentioning words and structures. Now imagine a grammar lesson or yourself taking notes about the use of English:
· The reason (why) I wasn’t there was it was raining. [‘why’ can be omitted]
· I don’t like him (= Steve) / his (= Steve’s) playing the piano so loudly. [two different structures are possible]
13) A few extra points:
· 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th (... ) are less frequently used than 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th (...), especially by native users.
· Do not write Altes Museum, Munich (Germany), but Altes Museum, Munich, Germany. The former would indicate something like ‘Munich is Germany’, rather than ‘belongs to’ or ‘is included in’. Similarly: I live in Moratalaz, Madrid.
· In abbreviations of all kinds (BBC, ie, Dr) American English still makes wide use of dots (B.B.C., i. e., Dr.), but it is customary to avoid them altogether in British English, but not in the following case: when all the letters in the abbreviation exactly correspond with the beginning letters of one certain word: Inc. (Incorporated), Prof. (Professor). Compare this with Mr and Dr, in which the ‘r’ is exactly the last letter. But of course this should not be confused with clipped forms like ‘lab’ (for ‘laboratory’), which are not written abbreviations, but shorter, spoken, usually colloquial forms of the original words.
· Some of the items that (usually) take an apostrophe in English are these:
a) the number of a year whose first two figures are left out: It was in ’99 (= 1999);
b) plural forms of words which do not normally have plurals: It seems an interesting idea, but there are a lot of if’s and but’s;
c) the plurals of letters and numbers: He writes b’s (= B’s) instead of v’s (= V’s); It was in the early 1960’s/1960s;
· The main differences between English and Spanish regarding capital letters are:
d) The names of the months and the days of the week, as well as all ‘nationality’ words, including adjectives, take capital initial letters: a Spanish girl; I study Japanese; some Andalusian horses; about Ancient Roman civilization; the seven Basque provinces that independists claim; a Scotsman; two Italians; the Dutch; Othello the Moor; the Arabs; the formerly-called Eskimos.
e) Titles of books, films, plays, etc, and other complex names (of institutions, pubs, restaurants and the like) take capital initials in all words or, more commonly, in all words except grammar, less meaningful words: The Catcher in the Rye, East of Eden, An Ideal Husband, A Murder Is Announced, The Red Lion, the Empire State (Building), the Towers of Parliament.
· In British English, begin a letter like this:
Dear Jess(,)
I’m writing to tell you (...)
Oddly enough, in American English, the colon is usual in this case.
14) Final comments
As I have intended to tell you, some things are more important than others when it comes to punctuating a text. Try to get accustomed to using full stops to separate your sentences, and use commas when there is a real reason (and there is usually one), but remember they are generally used for enclosing something, so, if you use them at all, think of both the beginning and the end of the enclosed piece. Don’t write a comma just, say, because you could interrupt yourself there when you are reading or speaking.
If there is one general principle that governs punctuation, this is syntactic hierarchy. Think in terms of, for example, primary, secondary and tertiary elements. Having a mathematical mind may help. Teenagers who do not understand the use of parentheses and hierarchy in mathematics do not understand punctuation either. Remember that you understand a well-written text - regardless of other difficulties - much better than one which is disorganised. Punctuation does play a part in being understood. Good punctuation also predisposes the reader favourably.
You can train yourself: take a text you do not have much difficulty in understanding, omit all punctuation and visual aids, and re-compose it. Put off direct speech for a stage where you are more confident with full stops and commas. You can also review all your compositions, or do, perhaps more than once, the few punctuation exercises present in almost every English coursebook and workbook. As with language in general, it is a good idea not to always depend on your teachers: there are lots of things you can do on your own.
Finally, remember your proverbs: Practice makes perfect; Never too late to learn; Soon learnt, soon forgotten [Do not over-hurry your learning]. Do not worry if you have found this difficult at this time in your life: some things are difficult; uprooting a ‘bad’ habit is certainly hard (Old habits die hard). By the way, you would have understood much less if my punctuation had been really bad – yes, many articles on punctuation are badly punctuated themselves! – in fact, the above-mentioned Comunidad de Madrid language exam does not differentiate between (I’m changing the example) “la palabra incorrecta” and “la palabra incorrecta” – more anti-didactic: it examines and evaluates kids about things that are linguistic mistakes themselves in the exam’s instructions! But this exam is the typical one, not the exception.
I know it is all difficult to believe, but I have studied and observed it all my life. So, back to our question: how can grown-ups be taught to punctuate their writing? I know it is difficult for most of you. How couldn’t it be? I know a couple of Primary and Secondary Education teachers who take part in publishing bilingual appendices of English coursebooks. Do you think they can punctuate? Or even spell “absorber” in the book? These must know about “sorbo” and “sorbete”, but not “absorber” or English absorption, just to give an example. So-called ‘linguistic intuition’ does not work in our country either. Read ‘Consejería de Educación’ (or similar institutions) publications for examples of how not to punctuate!
So the good thing may be... in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Note: of course there might be a few typos and spelling/punctuation mistakes in this text as well - after so many revisions and so much cutting and pasting! - but one swallow does not make a summer, does it?
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