PUNCTUATIONS
Symbols Uses Examples
1. At the end of a sentence 1. He loves watching TV.
2. 2 After each letter which stands for a 2. i.e.; e.g.
Full stop
word in an abbreviation
. 3. With shortened words
4. A decimal point
3. adj.; pron.
4. three point five - 3.5
5. A ‘dot’ in a website address 5. www.english.com
1. Before a coordinating conjunction 1. Three of the burglars escaped, but one
was arrested by the police.
2. With non-defining relative clauses 2. Tom, who lives in Canada, is a geologist.
3. With additional information which does 3. Ted Heath, the Prime Minister…
not define
4. With enumerations 4. I need tomatoes, milk, rice, apples...
Comma 5. To separate an introductory element 5. If you refuse to work, I’ll call the man-
, (clause, phrase, adverb, interjection)
6. To separate tag quest
ager.
6. It’s very warm here, isn’t it?
7. For numbers over 999 7. 1,000 (one thousand); 2,524
8. For addresses 8. Seattle, Washington
9. For some dates 9. Tuesday, 10 March 2015 (Br. Eng.)
Tuesday, March 10, 2015 (AM)
10. For titles following a name 10. Dr Jeckyll, MD
Sammy Davis, Jr
1. With lists that are too long 1. There are people here today from all
parts of the world: Sara, from Rome;
Semi-colon Michel, from Paris…
2. To separate closely related independ- 2. She usually takes a cup of thee before
; ent clauses going to bed; it helps her sleep.
3. To separate independent clauses, even 3. Most people have two jobs in order to
when they’re connected by a coordinat- raise their living standard; but I don’t
ing conjunction think it’s worth it.
1. To introduce a quote 1. The author said: “To be or not to be:
Colon that’s the question.”
: 2. Before a list or explanation preceded by 2. This is what you should do: you should
a clause that can stand by itself call the police, tell them the whole
story…
Double quo- 1. At the beginning and end of the direct 1. He said: “Let’s do it!”
tation speech
marks 2. To show words as being quoted 2. “The Pearl” by Steinbeck
“ ” 3. With titles of short stories, poems, art-
icles…
3. ‘To be or not to be…’
Single quo- 1. If we want to use quotation marks 1. He said to her: "I thought 'Titanic' was a
tation inside quotation marks, then we use good film."
marks single inside double, or double inside OR
‘ ’ single. He said to her: 'I thought "Titanic" was a
good film.'
Apostrophe 1. In possessive forms 1. John’s car
2. In contracted forms 2. it’s; they’re…
‘ 3. To show the plural of letters and
numbers
3. Do you like music from the 1950's?
Exclamation 1. At the end of an emphatic declaration, 1. Stop being silly!; Help!
mark interjection or command.
! 2. After strong imperative.
3. After many interjections
2. Look out!
3. "Hi! What's new?"
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Question 1. After direct questions 1. What are you doing?
mark 2. With question-tags 2. It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it?
?
Em dash 1. To separate words or groups of words 1. All of us − myself including − are willing
− to help you.
Dash; Hy- 1. To separate a prefix and a word 1. ex-wife; all-inclusive
phen 2. Used in compounds 2. a blue-eyed boy
- 3. When writing numbers 21 to 99, and
fractions
3. twenty-nine, one hundred and sixty-five
Round 1. To separate groups of words 1. Charlie Chaplin (better known as Charlot)
brackets was a famous comedian.
( ) 2. To add a personal comment 2. Many people love parties (I don't).
Square 1. To add clarification 1. The witness said: "He [the policeman] hit
brackets me."
2. To add information 2. The two teams in the finals of the FIFA
[ ] Football World Cup were both from South
America [Uruguay and Argentina].
1. For fractions 1. 1/2 (one half)
Slash 2. In dates to separate day, month and 2. He was born on 30/11/2007. (30th
/ year
3. To separate parts of a website address
November 2007 - BrE)
3. http://www.english.com/punctuation-
slash.htm
Ellipsis 1. When we want to omit information be- 1. The film focussed on three English
mark cause it’s not relevant or necessary learners...studying at university.
... 2. To indicate a pause 2. It's not easy to explain. It's not...
Underscore 1. Used for email addresses 1. my_name@example.com
_ 2. For filenames
3. For urls
2. image_123.jpg
3. http://www.englishclub.com/under_score
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OTHER SIGNS AND SYMBOLS
á acute accent ¥ yen sign
à grave accent ® registered sign
â circumflex (accent); caret © copyright sign
dieresis (mark);
ä umlaut mark
™ trademark sign
å ring † dagger
ñ tilde ♀ female sign
ç cedilla ♂ male sign
ß sharp s # hash; glyph
æ æ ligature ° degree sign
œ œ ligature % per cent sign
¿ inverted question mark ‰ per thousand sign
¡ inverted exclamation mark µ micro sign
* asterisk; star ± plus-or-minus sign
@ at-sign; commercial at - minus sign
angle brackets + plus sign
curly brackets;
{ } (curly) braces
x multiplication sign
\ backslash : division sign
│ vertical bar; pipe = equals sign
« » French quotation marks ≠ not equal to sign
& ampersand; and sign ≈ is approximately equal to sign
§ section (mark) < is smaller than sign
¶ paragraph sign > is greater than sign
ƒ florin sign ≤ smaller than or equal to sign
℮ (EU) estimated sign ≥ greater than or equal to sign
€ euro sign √ square root sign
$ dollar sign arrow to the right; right arrow
¢ cent sign arrow to the left; left arrow
₤ pound sterling sign left right arrow
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