English Grammar: Punctuation

Many people ignore the rules of English grammar in their writing. When a sentence is not properly punctuated, the reader may become confused, or not receive the impression the writer intended.

Commas

In English grammar, commas are used to divide separate elements of a sentence. However, when misused commas can become disruptive. For example:

"We have eggs,milk,cereal,flour and oil." In this sentence, the space which should be after each comma has been omitted. Properly written, the sentence would read:

"We have eggs, milk, cereal, flour and oil."

Also, be careful never to leave a space between the word and the comma.

Commas also should not be placed at random in a sentence. These are wrong:

"My friend from Arizona, is coming to visit me."

"We went to the store, and then came home."

"I put on the dress, because we were going out."

Corrected, the sentences would read:

"My friend from Arizona is coming to visit me."

"We went to the store and then came home."

"I put on the dress because we were going out."

Apostrophe Disease

This is by far the most common punctuation error I run across in English grammar. Apostrophes are placed almost at random throughout sentences, with no regard for the rules. Generally the person with apostrophe disease doesn't know the difference between plural and possessive forms. For example, "The computer's at the shop were in the box. I bought one, but it's hard drive was broken."

This sentence has two apostrophe errors. "Computer's" would indicate the possessive form of "computer." In this case, we want the plural form. "Computers."

"It's" is the contraction of "it" and "is" and is not possessive. This is one of the few exceptions to the rule about the possessive form. In this case, the possessive is spelled, "its." Apostrophes are never used to indicate the possessive in pronouns. "His." "Hers." "Theirs." "Ours."

When a word is plural, the apostrophe usually goes after the last "s" in the sentence. "The computers' hard drives were broken."