Pernickety about punctuation « Enjoy Education Blog
A little while ago I wrote about a variety of common grammatical errors, such as the misuse of apostrophes and when ‘their' should be ‘there' and ‘your' should be ‘you're'. At the risk of becoming a punctuation pedant, I'm going to recap on a few key rules regarding commonly vexing bits of the English language. I will also dish out a few new bits of advice to help you make your writing as perfect as possible. I urge you to do your best to remember what is to follow, as it will help you for years to come… APOSTROPHES Use these to indicate possession (Ben's dog), contraction (you're going to walk <a href="http://anfu.putianb2b.com/"><strong>莆田安福家*</strong></a> to dog today) and express quantities (twelve pounds' worth of chocolate). When you have nouns ending in ‘s' you can either add ‘s when they own something, or just add an apostrophe. For example: James's shoes or James' shoes. IT'S or ITS It's stands for ‘it has' or ‘it is', whereas ‘its' is to do with possession. (It's rude to speak with your mouthful). (Its tail is pink and fluffy). SQUARE BRACKETS These are used to explain something, or show that you have modified a piece of quoted text. ‘It [pheasant] is very hard to cook well'. COLONS Colons introduce things, such as a list. (You need to buy: <a href="http://www.putianb2b.com/"><strong>莆田外贸网址导航</strong></a> pens, paper, a ruler, a rubber and a folder.) They can also present quotations or divide bits of a title. (Marieke said: "learn how to use colons", or, Marieke wrote a book called ‘Punctuation: The next level'. SEMICOLONS You can use semicolons to separate items in a list or extend sentences. For example: ‘Amy was in the school jazz band; Philip was on the swimming team' (a good test of whether you have used a semicolon correctly in this way is if it could be replaced with either ‘but', ‘and', ‘or' or ‘therefore'). HOMOPHONES These are words that sound the same but are spelt differently and mean different things. Below is a list of homophones, which you should learn <a href="http://www.putianb2b.com/"><strong>莆田外贸</strong></a> to distinguish: Bare/bear Practice/practise Compliment/complement Advice/advice Effect/affect Discrete/discreet Feet/feat Creek/creak One/won Hare/hair Through/threw Die/dye Time/thyme Whole/hole Bored/board Tore/tour FEWER OR LESS? Use ‘fewer' when you are referring to more than one <a href="http://www.nationface.com/blogs/3429/182931/the-return-of-converse-shoes"><strong>The Return of Converse Shoes</strong></a> item (fewer bits of chocolate), and use ‘less' when you are referring to one thing (less chocolate is needed for the biscuits). If you want to know more about grammar and punctuation read one of the following: Grammar Rules: Writing with Military Precision by Craig Shrives Eats Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss Modern Punctuation by William Bradford Dickson The Perfect Punctuation Book by Kate Petty and Jennie Maizels
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