Imagine
a time in history when writing existed with only four basic punctuation marks such as the comma, the colon, the semicolon, and lastly the period. Now imagine yourself driving down a
street where you as the driver decelerate from a fifty-five
mile per hour zone (comma,) down to a forty-five mph zone (semicolon;), a
thirty-five mph zone (colon:), and then you finally come to a screeching halt at a stop
sign (period-long pause). That’s how our forbearer’s utilized punctuation as it
was meant to be used. This worked to emphasize their direct thoughts and
emotional expressions through the use of controlled rhythmic pauses.
But what happened? How did we come
to a day in time where our personal expressions of pauses from our own thoughts
and emotional expressions become considered ungrammatical? Sounds a bit
unfriendly to the freedoms of speech we praise so dearly, don’t you think? Quite so!
If everyone today is subordinate in
using the same structured grammatically correct use of punctuation, how can we
have individuality, freedom of expression, and the freedom to express our direct
thoughts and emotions as individuals? We
all sound ridiculously the same as if we
were released from the same grammatically correct institution.
What document was it where we signed
a pledge to follow a single reference of punctuation in our writing? Oh yeah-that’s right: we never did!
Do yourself a great justice and take a gander in any modern punctuation
reference book. You will find that there are much
more punctuation tools at your discretion. Each provides a unique quality to the
reader when traversing your sentences. Don’t be shy, use them as often as you
need to, especially in order to best represent your thoughts and emotions. If you
don’t want to use them, don’t. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with providing
a breathless view of the mountains the rivers the trees shrubs critters and
endless skies all in one emotional breath. That’s an expression. Your expression! It’s
also ok to-pause, at, intervals, whenever,
you, decide, your, audience, should, pause, and, reflect, on, what, you’re,
saying. Well, maybe that’s going to the extreme; but I hope: you get my drift!
Today we have dashes, italics, boldfacing, underlining, apostrophe, quotation
marks, question marks, brackets, ellipsis, slash’s, and emoticons to reflect
what we have to say and to assist in
representing us exactly the way we need to be heard.
There
are no real “Rules” in punctuation, except for the ones you’ve been told to
follow. In fact: the rules are of your own design, and of your own needs. Don’t
just hand your words to your readers in the same institutionalized manner as
everyone else, be different, reflect your difference in the use of your
preferred punctuation accents.
For more information regarding human behaviors, writing better, or to start your personalized public relations campaign today
Contact:
Outstory
Public Relations and Marketing Group
Advice That’s Precise
Advice That’s Precise
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