Punctuation 1.25A Lesson by compositionc An interview with a period and some more Mulder and Scullyness. OMG! IT'S, LIKE? I, unfortunately, have had the experience of reading this sentence. I tried to help said writer and they then bashed me. You know what I did next? I F*****G KILLED THEM LIKE AN ALIEN WORM. Okay...so, if you've stuck around, then you are now in for a wonderful tour of magnificence! No, not really. I'm broke. I did hire some actors to help me out. HOW TO TALK INTERVIEWS WITH PUNCTUATION Me: Hiya, everyone! *waves at camera* Look, Mommy! I'm on TV! *cricket noises* Me: *coughs* All right, so first up, we have the most commonly used punctuation mark of the century! Please give a warm welcome foooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...PERIOD! Immature guy: Lol. *trolls* Period: *sits on cow patterned couch* Like, hi. I'm Period. In England, they call me Full Stop. Some young people call me Dot. Just...just lovely to meet you. Me: So, Mr. Period, what are you used for? Period: I'm used to end sentences. Mostly statements or declarative sentences. I am also used after abbreviations. Tell me, agent, why is that word so long when an abbreviation is so short? Me: I dunno. Can you give us some examples in abbreviation usage? Period: Doctor becomes Dr. Mister becomes Mr. Senator becomes Sen. You know. In England, however, they forget about me. I like Americans. But...but they overuse me. Me: How so, my good mark? Period: *starts tearing up* When...when they try to make ellipsises. There are only supposed to be three. When they add more, it's just a long line of periods. It hurts, you know. Me: *hands over tissue awkwardly* Uhm, I'm sorry? Mr. Period, you are very rarely used in dialogue, you know that, right? Period: Yes. I do. BUT PEOPLE STILL USE ME! *starts sobbing* Me: *gestures for someone to take him away* And... *laughs awkwardly as he gets carted off to CSM knows where* That was Mr. Period. Next week, we'll be meeting up with my favourite punctuation mark of all time: EXCLAMATION MARK! GOES BLANK Okay. I'm sorry if that was a bit horrifying, but I'll take it from here, doves. I was correct; periods are very rarely used to end dialogue. This is the huge pet peeve of mine. I will go over this again, so you can doze off for now. MY MAJOR PET PEEVE "Scully! It's a werewolf." Mulder protested. "Mulder, don't be ridiculous. Werewolves are a myth, fiction. Even if they did exist, people would have known about their existance." she argued. "But, they're werewolves! They change at night! At least we should go check it out." Scully paused to reconsider. "Fine." Well, I love Scully and Mulder as much as the next person, but I HATE HOW THIS WAS WRITTEN. Shall we point out the two sentences containing an error? No? Oh, well, I guess I'll point them out. Sentence one: "Mulder, don't be ridiculous. Werewolves are a myth, fiction. Even if they did exist, people would have known about their existance," she argued. Sentence two: "Scully! It's a werewolf," Mulder protested. The mistake was small, but very distracting. I've seen one too many writers like this, and I have to admit, despite the fact their writing is fantastic, my opinion of them is just a tad lower than AMAZING. When you end a sentence in dialogue with a period and add a tag (he said, she said, ect), YOU MUST PUT A COMMA IN PLACE OF THE PERIOD. Repeat after me, my doves: WHEN THERE IS A TAG AFTER A STATEMENT IN DIALOGUE YOU PUT A COMMA IN PLACE OF THE PERIOD Yell it, sing it, hell, you can even dance to it, JUST DON'T FORGET IT. fin Some questions for the lovely commenters: 1. Do you comprehend my spastic teaching lessons? I try to be livelier than usual. 2. Am I a bad teacher? 3. Do you feel someone could learn something from this?   Comments
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