User talk:Amasouwe

COLON The colon, also known as a dot-point, is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line. In Unicode, it is encoded at U+003A : COLON (HTML: &#58;). Usage The most common use of the colon is to inform the reader that what follows the colon proves, explains, or lists elements of what preceded it. The Bedford Handbook describes several uses of a colon. For example, one can use a colon after an independent clause to direct attention to a list, an appositive, or a quotation. Also, it can be used between independent clauses if the second summarizes or explains the first. Furthermore, one may use a colon after the salutation in a formal letter, to indicate hours and minutes, to show proportions, between a title and subtitle, and between city and publisher in bibliographic entries.[1] Luca Serianni, an Italian scholar who helped to define and develop the colon as a punctuation mark, identified four punctuational modes for it: syntactical-deductive, syntactical-descriptive, appositive, and segmental.[2] Although Serianni wrote this guide for the Italian language, his definitions apply also to English and many other languages.

Semicolon The semicolon is a punctuation mark with several uses. The Italian printer Aldus Manutius the Elder established the practice of using the semicolon to separate words of opposed meaning and to indicate interdependent statements.[1] "The first printed semicolon was the work of ... Aldus Manutius" in 1494.[2] Ben Jonson was the first notable English writer to use the semicolon systematically. The modern uses of the semicolon relate either to the listing of items or to the linking of related clauses. In Unicode it is encoded at U+003B ; SEMICOLON (HTML: &#59;). According to the British writer on grammar, Lynne Truss, many non-writers avoid the colon and semicolon for various reasons: "They are old-fashioned", "They are middle-class", "They are optional", "They are mysteriously connected to pausing", "They are dangerously addictive (vide Virginia Woolf)", and "The difference between them is too negligible to be grasped by the brain of man".[3] In English While terminal marks (i.e., full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks) mark the end of a sentence, the comma, semicolon and colon are normally sentence internal, making them secondary boundary marks. Semicolons are between terminal marks and commas; their strength is equal to that of the colon.[4] Constraints 1.	When a semicolon marks the right boundary of a constituent (e.g., a clause or a phrase), the left boundary is marked by punctuation of equal or greater strength. 2.	When two or more semicolons are used within a single construction, all constituents are at the same level unlike commas which can separate, for example, subordinate clauses from main clauses. Usage A semicolon is used when a sentence could have been ended, but it wasn’t. Semicolons are followed by a lower case letter, unless that letter is the first letter of a proper noun like the word I or Paris. Modern style guides recommend no space before them, and one space after. Modern style guides also typically recommend placing semicolons outside of ending quotation marks—although this was not always the case. For example, the first edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (1906) recommended placing the semicolon inside ending quotation marks.[5] Applications of the semicolon in English include: •	Between items in a series or listing containing internal punctuation, especially parenthetic commas, where the semicolons function as serial commas: o	She saw three men: Jamie, who came from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man. o	Several fast food restaurants can be found within the cities: London, England; Paris, France; Dublin, Ireland; and Madrid, Spain. o	Examples of familiar sequences are: one, two, and three; a, b, and c; and first, second, and third. o	She stood at the edge, but then decided otherwise; she walked home. o	(Fig. 8; see also plates in Harley 1941, 1950; Schwab 1947). This is by far the most frequent use currently.[6] •	Between closely related independent clauses not conjoined with a coordinating conjunction: o	I went to the basketball court; I was told it was closed for cleaning. o	I told Kate she's running for the hills; I wonder if she knew I was joking. o	A man chooses; a slave obeys. o	I told John that his shoe was untied; he looked. o	At the mall I bought four things; my sister bought only two things. •	Between independent clauses linked with a transitional phrase or a conjunctive adverb: o	Everyone knows he is guilty of committing the crime; of course, it will never be proven.[7] o	It can occur in both melodic and harmonic lines; however, it is subject to certain restraints. o	Of these patients, 6 were not enrolled; thus, the cohort was composed of 141 patients at baseline. This is the least common use, and is mostly confined to academic texts.[8]

Hyphen The hyphen (‐) is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes (‒, –, —, ―), which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign (−) which is also longer. Etymology The term derives from Ancient Greek ὑφ᾽ ἕν (hyph’ hén), contracted from ὑπό ἕν (hypó hén) "in one" (literally "under one").[1] The term ἡ ὑφέν (hyphén) was used for a caret-like (^) sign written below two consecutive letters to indicate that they belong to the same word (where it was necessary to avoid ambiguities in times before the space was used regularly). Usage in English For Wikipedia's own standards for hyphen usage, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Hyphens Hyphens are mostly used to break single words into parts, or to join ordinarily separate words into single words. Spaces should not be placed between a hyphen and either of the words it connects except when using a suspended or "hanging" hyphen (e.g. nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers). A definitive collection of hyphenation rules does not exist; rather, different manuals of style prescribe different usage guidelines. The rules of style that apply to dashes and hyphens have evolved to support ease of reading in complex constructions; editors often accept deviations from them that will support, rather than hinder, ease of reading. The use of the hyphen in English compound nouns and verbs has, in general, been steadily declining. Compounds that might once have been hyphenated are increasingly left with spaces or are combined into one word. In 2007, the sixth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary removed the hyphens from 16 000 entries, such as fig-leaf (now fig leaf), pot-belly (now pot belly) and pigeon-hole (now pigeonhole).[2] The advent of the Internet and the increasing prevalence of computer technology have given rise to a subset of common nouns that may have been hyphenated in the past (e.g. "toolbar", "hyperlink", "pastebin"). Despite decreased use, hyphenation remains the norm in certain compound modifier constructions and, amongst some authors, with certain prefixes (see below). Hyphenation is also routinely used to avoid unsightly spacing in justified texts (for example, in newspaper columns).

Dash A dash is a punctuation mark, similar to a hyphen but differing primarily in length, and serving different functions. The most common versions of the dash are the en dash (–) and the em dash (—). Usage varies both within English and in other languages, but the usual convention in printed English text is: The short dash ("en rule") is used to indicate a span or a differentiation and may be considered as a substitute for and or to: the England–France match; the 1939–45 war; pp. 81–101 Long dashes ("em rules"), often with a space on either side, are normally found in pairs to enclose parenthetical statements, or singly to denote a break in the sentence: Some people — an ever increasing number — deplore this. Family and fortune, health and happiness — all were gone.[1]

Apostrophe The apostrophe ( ’ although often rendered as  ' ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets. In English, it serves three purposes:[1] •	The marking of the omission of one or more letters (as in the contraction of do not to don’t). •	The marking of possessive case (as in the cat’s whiskers). •	The marking by some as plural of written items that are not words established in English orthography (as in P's and Q's). (This is considered incorrect by others; see Use in forming certain plurals. The use of the apostrophe to form plurals of proper words, as in apple’s, banana’s, etc., is universally considered incorrect.) According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), ‘apostrophe’ comes ultimately from Greek ἡ ἀπόστροφος [προσῳδία] (hē apóstrophos [prosōidía], “[the accent of] ‘turning away’, or elision”), through Latin and French.[2] The apostrophe looks the same as a closing single quotation mark, although they have different meanings. The apostrophe also looks similar to, but is not the same as, the prime symbol ( ′ ), which is used to indicate measurement in feet or arcminutes, as well as for various mathematical purposes, and the ʻokina ( ʻ ), which represents a glottal stop in Polynesian languages. Such incorrect substitutes as ´ (acute) and ` (grave) are not uncommon in unprofessional texts, where an ambiguous treatment of the apostrophe in digital typesetting (as explained below) is a major factor of this confusion.

Comma The comma is a punctuation mark, and it appears in several variants in various languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline of the text. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight but inclined from the vertical, or with the appearance of a small, filled-in number 9. It is used to separate parts of a sentence such as clauses and lists of three or more things. The comma is used in many contexts and languages, principally for separating things. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word comma comes directly from the Greek komma (κόμμα), which means something cut off or a short clause. A comma can also be used as a diacritic when combined with other characters Uses in English In general, the comma is used where ambiguity might otherwise arise, to indicate an interpretation of the text such that the words immediately before and after the comma are less closely or exclusively linked in the associated grammatical structure than they might be otherwise. The comma may be used to perform a number of functions in English writing. It is used in generally similar ways in other languages, particularly European ones, although the rules on comma usage – and their rigidity – vary from language to language. Caret Caret (pron.: /ˈkærət/) is an inverted V-shaped grapheme. Specifically, caret commonly refers to the spacing character ^ in ASCII (at code point 5Ehex) and other character sets that may also be called a hat, control, uparrow, or less frequently chevron, xor sign, to the [power of], fang, shark (or shark-fin), pointer (in Pascal),[1] or wedge. Officially, this character is referred to as circumflex accent in both ASCII[2] and Unicode[3] terminology (because of its historical use in overstrike), whereas caret refers to a similar but lowered Unicode character: U+2038 ‸ CARET. Additionally, there is another lowered variant with a stroke: U+2041 ⁁ CARET INSERTION POINT.[4] The caret and circumflex are not to be confused with other chevron-shaped characters, such as U+028C ʌ LATIN LETTER TURNED V or U+2227 ∧ LOGICAL AND, which may occasionally be called carets too.[5][6]

Ellipsis Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from the Ancient Greek: ἔλλειψις, élleipsis, "omission" or "falling short") is a series of dots that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word, sentence or whole section from the original text being quoted. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence (aposiopesis), example: "But I thought he was . . ." When placed at the beginning or end of a sentence, the ellipsis can also inspire a feeling of melancholy or longing. The ellipsis calls for a slight pause in speech or any form of text, and can be used to suggest a tense or awkward momentary silence. The most common form of an ellipsis is a row of three periods or full stops (. . .) or a pre-composed triple-dot glyph (…). The usage of the em dash (—) can overlap the usage of the ellipsis. The Chicago Manual of Style recommends that an ellipsis be formed by typing three periods, each with a space on both sides. The triple-dot punctuation mark is also called a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot.