Hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes are frequently tested punctuation marks in government exam descriptive writing papers. Hyphens connect words, en dashes show ranges or relationships, and em dashes ...

'The apostrophe's chequered history poses enormous challenges not only for learners of English, but clearly for native speakers too'. Photo: Alamy What did the apostrophe ever do to deserve this? To ...

New symbols are being designed; old marks are serving new purposes. And collectives are actively working to preserve the correct uses of the dots and squiggles. In the 3rd century BCE, the Greeks ...

We're using semicolons less and less; the apostrophe still stumps most of us. Meanwhile, @, #, :, ) have new meanings and are performing new roles. Take a look. “Semicolon usage in British English ...

Punctuation marks may be small, but they carry a lot of weight—shaping tone, clarifying meaning and even signaling the writer’s personality. I adore the em dash; I tend to be a bit of a drama queen ...

When The Independent published Helen Coffey’s passionate eulogy for the semicolon – that misunderstood and underappreciated jewel of English punctuation – the reaction from our readers was ...

They are inaudible and unpronounceable. They do not exist in spoken English—they are at best a pause rather than a presence: no one (with apologies to those listening to this article in our audio ...

Now, according to a report from a language site, the semicolon is disappearing because writers aren’t confident of using them properly; they just don’t rate them or they’re scared someone will say, ...