| 词汇 | grammar_british-grammar_punctuation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 释义 | PunctuationThe most common punctuation marks in English are: capital letters and full stops, question marks, commas, colons and semi-colons, exclamation marks and quotation marks. In speaking, we use pauses and the pitch of the voice to make what we say clear. Punctuation plays a similar role in writing, making it easier to read. Punctuation consists of both rules and conventions. There are rules of punctuation that have to be followed; but there are also punctuation conventions that give writers greater choice. Punctuation: capital letters (B, D) and full stops (.)We use capital letters to mark the beginning of a sentence and we use full stops to mark the end of a sentence:
We also use capital letters at the beginning of proper nouns. Proper nouns include personal names (including titles before names), nationalities and languages, days of the week and months of the year, public holidays as well as geographical places:
We use capital letters for the titles of books, magazines and newspapers, plays and music:
In addition to closing sentences, we also use full stops in initials for personal names:
Full stops are also used after abbreviations, although this practice is becoming less common:
See also: Noun phrases Punctuation: question marks (?) and exclamation marks (!)We use question marks to make clear that what is said is a question. When we use a question mark, we do not use a full stop:
We use exclamation marks to indicate an exclamative clause or expression in informal writing. When we want to emphasise something in informal writing, we sometimes use more than one exclamation mark:
See also: Exclamative clauses Punctuation: commas (,)We use commas to separate a list of similar words or phrases:
We do not normally use a comma before and at the end of a list of single words:
American English does use a comma in lists before and:
We use commas to separate words or phrases that mark where the voice would pause slightly:
Separating clauses with commasWhen main clauses are separated by and, or, but, we don’t normally use a comma if the clauses have the same subject. However, we sometimes use commas if the clauses have different subjects:
When a subordinate clause comes before the main clause, we commonly use a comma to separate the clauses. However, we do not always do this in short sentences:
When we use subordinate or non-finite comment clauses to give further details or more information, we commonly use commas to separate the clauses:
Commas and relative clausesWe use commas to mark non-defining clauses. Such clauses normally add extra, non-essential information about the noun or noun phrase:
The same is true for non-finite clauses:
Warning: We don’t use commas to mark defining clauses:
See also: Clauses Commas and speech formsWe commonly separate tags and yes-no responses with commas:
We also usually separate vocatives, discourse markers and interjections with commas:
We use commas to show that direct speech is following or has just occurred:
When the direct speech is first, we use a comma before the closing of the quotation marks:
See also: Reported speech Punctuation: colons (:) and semi-colons (;)We use colons to introduce lists:
We also use colons to indicate a subtitle or to indicate a subdivision of a topic:
We often use colons to introduce direct speech:
We commonly use a colon between sentences when the second sentence explains or justifies the first sentence:
We use semi-colons instead of full stops to separate two main clauses. In such cases, the clauses are related in meaning but are separated grammatically:
Semi-colons are not commonly used in contemporary English. Full stops and commas are more common. Punctuation: quotation marks (‘…’ or “…”)Quotation marks in English are ‘…’ or “…”. In direct speech, we enclose what is said within a pair of single or double quotation marks, although single quotation marks are becoming more common. Direct speech begins with a capital letter and can be preceded by a comma or a colon:
We can put the reporting clause in three different positions. Note the position of commas and full stops here:
When we use direct speech inside direct speech, we use either single quotation marks inside double quotation marks, or double quotation marks inside single quotation marks:
We commonly use question marks inside the quotation marks unless the question is part of the reporting clause:
We also use single quotation marks to draw attention to a word. We can use quotation marks in this way when we want to question the exact meaning of the word:
We sometimes use quotation marks to refer to the titles of books, newspapers, magazines, films, songs, poems, videos, CDs, etc:
We can use italics instead of quotation marks for these citations:
Articles or chapters within books, or titles of short stories, are normally punctuated by single quotation marks:
Punctuation: dashes ( – ) and other punctuation marksDashes are more common in informal writing. They can be used in similar ways to commas or semi-colons. Both single and multiple dashes may be used:
Brackets have a similar function to dashes. They often add extra, non-essential information:
We use brackets around dates and page numbers in academic writing:
We often use forward slashes in internet addresses and to indicate and/or in academic references:
Punctuation: numerals and punctuationIn British English the date is usually given in the order day, month, year. We use full stops in dates. Forward slashes or dashes are also commonly used:
In American English the day and the month are in a different order so that 8 January 1985 is written as follows:
We don’t usually punctuate weights and measures and references to numbers:
Commas are used in numbers to indicate units of thousands and millions:
We use full stops, not commas, to indicate decimal points:
We can punctuate times with full stops or colons:
Saying email and internet addressesSpoken English: When we speak email and web addresses, we say each word separately. To avoid confusion, we sometimes spell out each letter of a word:
Symbols and typographic conventions
See also: Punctuation Spelling |
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