In Apostrophes^x, Punctuation^x

You can use till and until interchangeably in both writing and speech, though as the first word in a sentence until is more common: Until you get that paper written, don’t even think about going to the movies. If you’ve always thought that till is a...

A is an interesting one, Hela. Dashes are presumably casual colons, and I find the same problem with both of them. If it looks too awkward or unclear, I recast as an unpunctuated clause. B-- This is one of the special cases in which you are permitted to use an apostrophe to make a plural; it...

Apostrophe ( ' ) See Possessives for more information. The apostrophe is used when leaving out a letter or number in a contraction, e.g. can't, wouldn't. The apostrophe is used for omitted letters, e.g. rock 'n' roll, and for omitted numbers, e.g. the class of '72, the '20s. The...

Thank you for your answers. I often wonder how English is perceived by those who don't use it as a first language. Since I've known English all my life, I feel like I've never been able to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of the language. I've tried looking at texts written in English and...

This is indeed correct, although your apostrophy is in fact an apostrophe.. I thought I would point out the correct spelling of the word seeing as this is a forum on English language. Can I suggest some additional reading: "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss. It covers the whole spectrum...

The thing is too long and complicated, Guest. You won't get tangled in punctuation and grammar so much if you SIMPLIFY and CLARIFY. The following revision says everything that your original does, and much more clearly: 'We want to expand China and EU citizen exchange and cooperation.'

You can't put a semicolon before the 'however', because there is no independent clause preceding it. The bit needs re-working; it is awkward. You can keep the semicolon if you wish, but I would prefer a full stop and a new start on the complex sentence to follow: 'There are no absolute rights...

There are three basic rules, which I won't mention here. When a noun such as Keats is possessive, the lone apostrophe is fine and follows the rule. When the extra syllable is added, the extra s (Keats's is okay (Keats-uz).

Hi, Please comment on the underlined portion of quote. Actually, you may comment on any portion, but I am specifically interested in the underlined portion. Consulting a dozen or so recently published punctuation guides, I can report that they contain minor disagreements on virtually all...

Hi, Is this following sentence grammatical: The rule is: the word "it's" (with apostrophe) stands for "it is" or "it has". I always believed that the stuff prior to the colon had to be complete sentence in its own right? What say you? MountainHiker