Where Did the Question Mark Go
It was sort of interesting to learn a little while ago that people have decided to start attaching huge significance to whether or not a sentence in a text or chat or other short message ends in a period. Sort of.
The Oxford Comma Is, So, Popular
A FiveThirtyEight poll that I choose to consider definitive finds that 57% of Americans do prefer to use the Oxford comma. The Oxford comma is popular, beloved, and correct. Its opponents are crude, unpoetic and awkward. [Pic: Shutterstock]
Punctuation Marks, Ranked
It's National Punctuation Day, a day for prescriptivists and schoolmarms to lord their shibboleths over everyone else, as opposed to every other day of the year, when everyone is very mellow and forgiving and aware that correct ("correct") use of punctuation is contingent and arbitrary—that it is often a weapon for …
New Sarcasm Punctuation Mark Makes Punctuation Cool Again
Important grammar news via press release! There is now a punctuation mark to indicate sarcasm. You can purchase SarcMark© software, to boldly indicate when you're being less than serious. Luckily, our readers always pick up on sarcasm right away.
¡No!
¿Tomorrow is National Punctuation Day? ¡Yes!
Buyout Means Site Can Now Afford Semicolons
Break Media just bought WallStreetFighter.com for an undisclosed sum, which must be a tidy one because of the words "Wall Street" in the site's name. Apparently Wall Street Fighter gets half a million visitors per month [TVWeek]. Who knew? Break decided its mix of simplified finance posts mixed with "check out this…
NYT Makes Comma Error Inside Semicolon Article
Boy, an s-load of corrections in the NYT today! Not the least of which include the admission that in the frenzy of their breathless dork-out about the perfect use of a semicolon on an MTA placard, they messed up on comma usage.
'Times' Guilty Of Crimes Against Punctuation
In re. the Times getting cute about grammar: did you know that while they run one of the very few regular columns in a major publication on language and usage, the New York Times is guilty of ignoring the en dash? It's shocking, but true. In fact, we received a huge and comprehensive letter to the Times about this…
'Times' Excited By Proper Punctuation
The Times was sooo thrilled to find a vaguely correct use of a semicolon on a subway ad that they tracked down the copywriter (who has a degree in creative writing, natch) and wrote a whole cutesy piece about how rare it is that civilians punctuate properly. Then they asked various famous linguists and grammarians to…
Kinsley on Hitchens: "!!!!!"
In tomorrow's Book Review, Slate founder/TIME columnist Michael Kinsley explains to us the magic behind "the Christopher Hitchens phenomenon." Who would have guessed—apparently the secret is logic.
JT Leroy: The Best Thing to Happen to Quotation Marks Since Irony
From the masthead of the new BlackBook:
