Punctuation Tips For Those Who Wonder

Introduction

Greetings, reader. I suspect that in the near future a solid part of the fic.fan community will still be Russian-speaking audience as well as authors who want to try their hand at translating or writing initially in English. For the vast majority of people, English is not their second native language. At schools and in universities, we have spent years learning the wonderful English language, its vocabulary, tenses, rules of indirect speech, gerund, etc. For many of us, this experience gave us only a theoretical base, while practically we became proficient in it by consuming English (mostly American) content online. As a result, hardly anyone nowdays is surprised to learn that one can speak English quite well, having never even been abroad or spoken a word to a native speaker in one’s entire life. However! There is one aspect that has passed us by—and that is punctuation. For some reason unknown to me, English punctuation is not taught in schools; you won’t learn it in uni—unless you’re a major in linguistics—and there is not much information online on the subject to be found, and it is often contradictory. But I do know that you, reader, really want to write your fanfics in English competently, to use commas, colons and dashes correctly, and not just to calque their placement from Russian (which, let’s be honest, not many authors manage even in Russian, given it’s theirs mother tongue). It is worth saying at once that English does not have such strict punctuation rules as Russian. To this day, every major publishing house or newspaper has its own guidebook, prescribing the rules of text formatting. So don’t be surprised when you’ll see words like often, sometimes in this article. As captain Barbossa said it: “The pirate’s code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.” In this small guide, you will take a crash course on the topic of the correct placement of punctuation marks. It will be organized in “from complex stuff to simple” manner, not the other way around. There’s a reason for that: I don’t want you to have to read ten trivial banal things that you already know, but to start with the things that most Russian-speaking people have problems with, and we’ll leave the more understandable things for last so you’re free to skip them.

Clauses

So, the first thing we need to know in order to correctly place our commas is what a clause is. Or rather, we don't need to know what clauses are in all their linguistic specifics and particulars—we just need to understand that a clause is a minimum possible length of a sentence. She eats. That's a clause. She is the subject, eats is the verb phrase. When someone does something, that’s a clause. When someone is being something, that’s a clause. I walk; he sleeps; dog barks; John is a teacher; Sasha hates fic.fan; Alex is loud. In Russian classes at school, we would most likely talk about the grammatical basis of the sentence, in this case. Most often a clause has a subject, but sometimes it may not have one—only the verb remains, and the subject is only implied. For example, in the sentence Be careful! the subject is not given, but we understand from the context that the implication is You be careful! and You is the subject. (And sometimes clauses also have an object, a complement, and an adjunct. For example, I love her. Her is an object. But let’s not delve too deep into those for those things are not essential to the topic.) If there are several clauses in a sentence, it is a compound sentence. And here’s the first important thing to understand. Not all compound sentences are equal because not all clauses are equal. Here’s an example. I love her, but she doesn’t love me. One sentence, two clauses. — I love her — She doesn’t love me These two clauses are known as main (or independent) clauses. Each of them can form a separate sentence without losing any meaning. Let’s also look at another sentence. She doesn't love me because I'm ugly. One sentence, two clauses, as well. — She doesn't love me — Because I'm ugly Now, clearly the second clause cannot form a separate sentence because it would have lost part of its meaning, being the cause of what is stated in the main clause “She doesn't love me”. Such clause is called subordinate (or dependent). Another examples of sentences with subordinate clauses in them (marked as bold): — He studied mathematics before taking a medical degree. (The subject of the second clause is missing but we can figure that it is “before he took a medical degree”) — If I tell him, will he be angry? (The subordinate clause here is placed before the main clause.) — She had pretty hair when she was young. Notice how each given subordinate clause can’t form a stand-alone sentence. Alright, now that we know something about clauses, let's finally define some of the punctuation rules for which this definition of clauses is important.

Commas

(,)

Do use commas to separate independent clauses when they are joined by any of these seven coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet. (In practice, you will only encounter and, but, or; the other conjunctions are likely to separate the subordinate clause.) Examples: I love vanilla ice cream, but my brother prefers chocolate. I am nineteen, and my sister is sixteen. Don't use commas to separate independent clauses if the clauses have the same subject. Examples: Footballers these days earn more money but they play many more matches. (Same subject—no comma.) They were very friendly and invited us to their house. (Same subject—no comma.) Don't use commas to separate subordinate clause. Example: Don’t hesitate to phone us if you get lost in the city centre. Do use commas to separate subordinate clause if the subordinate clause comes before the main clause. Example: If you get lost in the city centre, don't hesitate to phone us. However, we do not always do this in short sentences. Example: If you get lost just phone us. (Not “If you get lost, just phone us.”) Clauses can be defining and non-defining. Do use commas to mark non-defining clauses. Such clauses normally add extra, non-essential information about the noun or noun phrase. Examples: The ambulance, which arrived after just five minutes, took three people to the hospital. The storm, lasting as it did for several days, caused serious damage to villages near the coast. Don’t use commas to mark defining clauses (those are indicated by the word “that”). Example: Barcelona is the city that was selected for the Olympic Games. Alright, those were the clauses. Now on to simpler things. Do separate tags and yes-no responses with commas: They are going to the party, aren’t they? Do separate vocatives with commas: Open the door, Katty, will you? Do separate discourse markers with commas: Well, what do you think about it? Do separate interjections with commas: Wow, it is so-o cool! Do use commas to show that direct speech is following or has just occurred (it is much simpler in English than in Russian, with all those dashes and rules): He said in his opening speech, “Now is the time to plan for the future.” “Now is the time to plan for the future,” he said in his opening speech. (If you want a prolonged pause before the following speech, you may use colon instead, more on that later.) Do use commas to separate a list of similar words or phrases: It’s important to write in clear, simple, accurate words. Note, American English does use a comma in lists before and: We took bread, cheese, and fruit with us. Do use commas to separate words that come before the main clause: In the beginning, there was light. Do use commas to separate words or phrases that mark where the voice would pause slightly: We had, in fact, lost all of our money. Finally, do use commas to set off all geographical names, items in dates (except the month and day), addresses (except the street number and name), and titles in names: On November 18, 2023, Jeff Smith, marketing director at Intel, traveled to 14 Appian Way in Rome, Italy.

Semicolons

(;)

Alright, we have learned that a comma is placed between two independent clauses if they are separated by conjunctions such as but, and, or, and so on. So, what do we do if we have two independent clauses with no conjunctions between them? In Russian we would simply put a comma there, all the same. But in English that would be a mistake—such a common mistake, in fact, that it was given a specific name. A comma splice. Remember, to link two independent clauses in English, you have to use a semicolon. He loves cooking; he's great at making curries. We were out of milk; I went to the store.  I am not angry with you; I am not happy with you, either. You either do use your semicolons or do use your conjunctions. No commas. Incorrect: We were out of milk, I went to the store.  Correct: We were out of milk, so I went to the store.  Correct: We were out of milk; I went to the store. Remember, if there's no conjunction between two independent clauses, there should be either a semicolon or a colon.

Colons

(:)

We do often use a colon between clauses when the second clause explains or justifies the first one: I went to the store: we were out of milk. Do use colons to introduce direct speech if a simple comma is not sufficient for the desired pause: Then he said: “I really cannot help you in any way.” Do use colons to introduce lists: There are three types of fruit on the table: bananas, apples, pears. Do use colons to indicate a subtitle or to indicate a subdivision of a topic: Punctuation tips for those who wonder: Colons

Dashes

(—)

Em-dashes, to be more specific. The long ones. Short en-dashes is not a punctuation mark per se. And, please, do not use hyphens (-) instead. We are talking long schlongs here. Long, long, long. Alright, em-dash is an interesting one. Unlike in Russian, there's no specific, strict rule on how to use them and where to place them in English. In Russian, dashes are used mainly to indicate that something is missing—subject or predicate most often. Or it is used to show a quick set of events. Or—to make a conclusion. You can also do a dramatic pause with them in Russian. In English, on the other hand... You can do all these things as well! As I said, no strict rules; just make sure you can be understood. Dashes are more common in informal writing. They can be used in similar ways to commas or semicolons, or basically any other punctuation mark. Both single and multiple dashes may be used: Just wanted to thank you for a lovely evening—we really enjoyed it. (Here it is used in place of a semicolon to give the second part of the sentence a slight “consequence” or “conclusion” meaning to what is said in the first part of the sentence.) Our teacher—who often gets cross when we’re late—wasn’t cross at all. (Here it is used in place of a paired commas to emphasize the additional information.) Four of us—Mike, Amanda, Katy, and I—went to the conference last week. (When using an appositive that contains a comma, offset it with dashes, instead.) When a sentence begins with an independent clause and ends with a list, you can use a colon between the clause and the list. When the list comes first, it’s better to use a dash to connect the list to the clause: Dishes, laundry, dusting—they’re all done now, and I need a rest. Do use em-dashes to mark sharp turns in thought: Where the heck is my—wait, what was I looking for? Do use em-dashes instead of ellipses (...) when the speaker is interrupted: He said, “What did you just—” And at that moment, a fist slammed into his face. And lastly, in English, the dash is usually not separated with spaces on both sides, it sort of tears the fabric of the text.

Quotation marks

(“...” and ‘...’)

Quotation marks in English are ‘…’ or “…”. In direct speech, we enclose what is said within a pair of single or double quotation marks, although single quotation marks are becoming more common. Direct speech begins with a capital letter and can be preceded by a comma or a colon: She said, “Where can we find a nice Chechen restaurant?” (or She said: ‘Where can we find a nice Chechen restaurant?’) When we use direct speech inside direct speech (we put a car in your car, so you can drive while you drive), we use either single quotation marks inside double quotation marks, or double quotation marks inside single quotation marks: “It was getting really cold,” he said, “and they were saying ‘When can we go back home?’” Do use single quotation marks to draw attention to a word. We can use quotation marks in this way when we want to question the exact meaning of the word or show sarcasm: I am very disappointed by her youtube ‘apology’. I don’t think she meant it at all. In English we rarely use quotation marks to refer to the titles of books, newspapers, magazines, films, songs, poems, videos, CDs, etc. It's either just a capital letter or you may use italics. There’s a special report all about it in The Daily Mail.

Parentheses

()

Parentheses or simply brackets have a similar function to paired dashes. They often add extra, non-essential information, and while dashes draw attention to what's inside them, brackets do the opposite. Django (the “D” is silent) is a free man.

Outro

A-a-and that's basically all there's to it. I hope this article of mine was somewhat helpful to you, and you learned one or two things. Remember, none of this is set in stone. All those are just some general rules, and you will see they are being neglected everywhere everytime because that is the way English language evolved in its printed form, historically. Alright, see you. xoxox