#punctuation marks

The comma ( , )

✅ Serial comma: Ted played with Jack, Jason, and his dog Max.

✅ Bracketing comma: A tortoise named Jonathan, the oldest living land animal, is aged 192 years. Or: Jonathan, aged 192 years old, is the oldest living land animal.

✅ Joining comma: The Eiffel Tower was originally made for Barcelona, but was built in Paris.

✅ Introductory comma: With 116 lanes, the largest bowling alley in the world is in Japan.

Period or the full stop ( . )

✅ The longest English word has 45 letters.

✅ Abbreviations: Dr. William Macewen was the first doctor to successfully remove a brain tumor.

✅ Initials: The first satellite launched by N.A.S.A was called Explorer One.

✅ Decimals: The value of Pie is 3.14.

Question mark ( ? )

✅ Did you know that honey never spoils?

Did you know that octopuses have three hearts?

Exclamation point ( ! )

✅ Bananas are berries but strawberries aren’t!

A shrimp’s heart is in its head!

Semi color ( ; )

✅ Koalas sleep up to 22 hours a day; they’re basically professional nappers.

Cows have best friends; they get stressed when separated.

Colon ( : )

✅ List: The world is full of fun facts: Flamingos aren’t born pink, your ears and nose never stop growing, and Russia has eleven time zones!

✅ Elaboration: The shortest war was between Britain and Zanzibar: it lasted 38 minutes. 

✅ Quotation: He said: “Saturn’s rings can tell us how the solar system was born.” 

Em dash ( — )

✅ Interruption: The Great Wall of China—spanning over 13,000 miles—was originally built to protect against invasions.

✅ Additional information: The giraffe—the tallest land animal—can grow up to 18 feet tall.

En dash ( – )

✅ Range indication: The day–night cycle influences all living creatures.

✅ Connection of related items: The land–sea balance affects the planet’s climate.

Hyphen ( - )

✅ Joining parts of words: The ice-cream cone is enjoyed all around the world.

✅ Dividing a word by the end of a line: In the past, hyphens were used at the end of lines to split long words, helping maintain neat a-nd consistent text layouts in printed books and newspapers.

Parenthesis ( )

✅ Clarifying a point: The cheetah is the fastest land animal (it can reach 60 miles per hour).

✅ Minor thoughts: The Amazon rainforest produces 20% of the world's oxygen (it's called the lungs of the Earth).

Brackets ( [ ] )

✅ The giant panda's diet consists mostly of bamboo [despite being a carnivore]

Apostrophe ( ‘ )

✅ Showing possession: Shakespeare's plays are still performed all over the world.

✅ Forming contractions: “Can't” is one of the most common contractions in the English language.

 Quotation marks ( “ “ ) 

✅ Indication of speech: Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

✅ Highlighting words or phrases: “A Temporary Matter” is the first short story in ‘Interpreter of Maladies’.

Ellipses ( … )

✅ Omission: In the famous phrase "To be or not to be... that is the question," the ellipsis is used to omit part of the original quote.

Pausing or trailing off: People often say, "I saw something strange... but I can't explain it," pausing to build suspense.

Slash ( / )

✅ Indication of alternatives: Some people are team dog/cat when it comes to pets, but did you know that people who own both often live longer?

I recently became aware of a whole bunch of obscure punctuation marks that I never knew existed.  As a result of this discovery, I’ve created a series of images that honor these obscure punctuation marks. This is another in the series.  Not sure anyone will ever actually use these punctuation marks but you could try to adding them in as part of your social media dating app profile.  Who knows, you might get lucky. 

The "Irony Mark" is a punctuation mark designed to indicate a hidden subtext or ironic meaning in a sentence. It's meant to help readers understand that the text may be sarcastic, cynical, or expressing a subtext that is different from what the words explicitly say. The mark typically precedes the sentence to which it applies. 

You can certainly try using it nowadays but the irony would be..... very few would understand what you’re talking about. But…. you would.  And really, that’s all that matters.  

I see the punctuation mark you have tattooed behind your ear Small and unassuming, but still there and to those of us who know the symbols It's a flashing beacon of hope We see the lighthouse's bulb before we ever see the building

I see the lines upon your wrists and I show you mine We share a quiet moment in the restaurant inside the mall the bar the club

your bedroom

Swapping stories when life was supposedly worse but we're high, so this moment is the best and you tell me your story Maybe it was the drugs talking but it was the best story I've ever been told the ending, god, the ending

You told me how you tried to end it all how you bought a packet of blades warm bath, it's just like falling asleep Your mom found you and you barely survived hospital for months That was eight years ago, you said eight years that you shouldn't have

At least we're finally being honest

You say your happy that you failed and that you couldn't find someone with a gun You said you would've used your dad's but you didn't want to run that for him sometimes that's all he's got

A tear from your eye and landed on my jeans

I listened, I listened as you told me everything and all I could say was that I loved you When your words ran dry You looked up to me