When it comes to proper punctuation, choosing between an exclamation point and a question mark is child’s play. The semicolon-vs.-colon decision is a bit tougher to make. But even that can’t compare ...

When you’re writing by hand, a hyphen and a dash can look pretty similar, although the meanings differ. You might throw in a hyphen to link two well-known words or add a dash—for impact, of course.

I don’t talk much here about the en dash — the little punctuation mark that looks like it can’t decide if it’s a hyphen or a full-fledged dash. There are a couple of reasons I avoid the subject. For ...

It’s a proven fact that as you get older you worry more about punctuation. Fussing about apostrophes and semicolons just comes with the territory. Thus, it’s no surprise that the other day our coffee ...

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been giving this note to my editing clients: “Replace floating hyphen with proper em dash.” It comes up when I’m proofreading images, like PDFs, and I see a hyphen ...

Punctuation marks are the flesh and bones of every modern written language. Sometimes, missing out a comma can completely change the meaning of a sentence (for example, “Let’s eat Grandpa!” means ...

A debate surrounds the em dash, dubbed the 'ChatGPT hyphen'. Gen Z and social media users link it to AI content. However, literary figures like Jane Austen used it too. Its presence in AI stems from ...

Gen Z thinks they’ve figured out a dead giveaway that someone has used ChatGPT — and it might surprise you. The em dash is punctuation loved by writers everywhere, functioning like a comma, colon or a ...