Punctuation Is Important
When I was a schoolboy – quite a long time ago, I grant you – my teacher constantly drummed into me the importance of punctuation. The little marks that were introduced into text from ancient times and standardised when printing took off in the 14th century. Punctuation stops ambiguity and lets people know the real meaning of a sentence.
Compare the two sentences: “King Charles walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off” with “King Charles walked and talked; half an hour later, his head was cut off”. The punctuation does make a difference.
Or this one: “Let’s eat Mummy” vs. “Let’s eat, Mummy”
One of the other things that really gets on my goat is the correct use of the apostrophe. Knowing the difference between its and it’s (and, boy, a lot of people get that wrong). Why does no-one play in the Giant Kid’s Payground? Answer: because they’re frightened of the Giant Kid.
So I’m pleased to see that Google has at long last started to recognise the importance of the full stops, commas, semi colons et al. In the past the algorithm simply dropped them on the floor – just like the stop words that we discussed in Pronouns The Window To Your Soul, but now type in , or . or ; and you’ll see that Google does the search.
My old English teacher would be proud
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