3.1.07

punctuation education

Since I began blogging and reading the blogs of others, I’ve discovered just how entertaining the little quirks of the English language can be. I think there should be a beginning blogger’s manual to take advantage of some of these quirks. It would sound something like this:

Bolding a word can give it emphasis; as opposed to the method of typing in all CAPITALS, bolding conveys more serious or intriguing importance, rather than being the typographical equivalent of YELLING.

Italics: They’re no longer just for titles of books. In my experience, italics come in handy when posting a poem or passage of someone else’s, or a foreign phrase.

Ellipse… These are useful when conveying a deep thought or unresolved opinion, in order to leave the reader with a sense of pondering. They’re also great when you can think of a great beginning for a sentence but don’t really know how to finish it properly…

“Quotation marks”. This is a wonderfully simple punctuation trick. You can put quotes around “anything” and readers will automatically “wonder” what you’re trying to “imply”.

TyPiNg LiKe ThIs: I actually have no idea what this technique is used for, other than annoying the reader.

Emoticons: These interesting ^_^ little faces can convey a variety of emotions like anger >:-( , happiness ;P or even a queasy stomach :$.


The Dash - the typgraphical equivalent of a dramatic pause or flourish - Voila!

6 comments:

Sonnjea said...

This post was hilarious...

emily said...

Agreed, great post! And I'll admit, I am a big fan of the ellipse. I try not to use them too much...makes me look like I'm spacey.

ryc: my class load for this semester is Intro to Archaeology, Public Interpretation in Anthropology, Discipline Matters: Thought and Interpretation in Anthropology, and Indigenous Peoples and Tourism. The second class is going to be a lot of photography and video editing, the purpose is to find creative means to make anthropology available to the public. The last class is a prep for fieldwork with the Cree in Northern Quebec.

What are your classes like?

emily said...

Just had a duh! moment. I realized after I asked that question (with an interest in making polite conversation) you had already blogged about next semester's classes. So...good luck with that Botany lab! :-D

Steven said...

You should check out Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Explains the importance of punctuation

:-)

Unknown said...

I'm a punctuation snob. It is not that I don't make mistakes (many) but I don't get the people who want to be literary without spelling and punctuation. A blog is semi-permanent. It is not an instant message.
Uh oh, I'm ranting. Blogging does that to one.

Shelby said...

like the post!