Damn Punctuation Marks

June 28, 2010 at 6:10 pm · Filed under Roba

When a bad fad goes bad, it goes REALLY bad. And that is what’s happening to punctuation.

Over the past year, I have noticed the increasing amount of terrible punctuation habits. I’m guessing that Facebook is to blame. I mean, when you see so many people adding a space before an exclamation mark, it must be right, right?

Well , I understand the logic , I have been a victim to such thoughts myself when it comes to other matters. But the problem with the punctuation fad is that it’s driving me nuts . I’m not a grammar nerd , really , I’m not . It’s just that sentences look so out of balance and so visually hideous without type being set in the right place .

So to clear any misconceptions about proper type and punctuation practices (and at the risk of sounding like a total smart ass), I have created this handy little guide:






  • http://deleted هيثم الشيشاني Haitham Al-Sheeshany

    Wallahy this post digged my head! <—(no space :D)

    Thanks thanks thanks.

    H.

  • http://andfaraway.net Roba

    LOL Haitham, did you use to do that? Honestly, I’ve been so overrun by friends doing that recently that I don’t even realize who does and who doesn’t anymore! I hope I don’t offend anyone :)

  • http://naserz.blogspot.com Naser

    Oh boy! tell me about it! look I always liked languages and precision in using it in general, but ever since I started my copywriting career I’m having the same symptoms you have :/! I sometimes read something, pick up ALL the mistakes and typos in it and I wouldn’t know what the hell I was reading!
    There’s a funny book about this called “Eats, roots & leaves”, really fun to read.
    PS: the sharing icons kinda annoying when you want to read the last line in the page, yes I’m too lazy to scroll down :p
    .-= The latest from Naser´s blog ..One year later =-.

  • http://0xff.ps/ Hussam

    OK, so are we to assume that you added spaces before punctuation marks in the 3rd paragraph on purpose? :-)

  • http://andfaraway.net Roba

    Naser, well, I guess that’s the nature of the world! I will try to catch that book.
    Thanks for the note on the sharing buttons, I thought I’d test them out for a few days :) In my experience, no one even uses sharing buttons!
    But let’s see.

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  • http://andfaraway.net Roba

    Hussam, I would be seriously dumb if it was done by mistake :D

  • http://hannahdraper.blogspot.com hannah

    I think I love you.

  • http://jaraad.wordpress.com jaraad

    What I still don’t understand is why in many Arabic books a comma is preceded by a space. Is there a space before a comma in Arabic texts? I have read many books about punctuation in English language but I didn’t find an Arabic book that talks about punctuation in Arabic Language. It doesn’t make since to me to have a space before a comma, a question mark, a period, or an exclamation mark. Otherwise, a comma might end up in the beginning of a line (try it in MS word).
    .-= The latest from jaraad´s blog ..The anti-Semitism business =-.

  • http://one-ugly-duckling.blogspot.com/ Rand

    Oh my God thank you! I hate hate hate when they do that, you know I’m the Twitter grammar Nazi don’t you? It’s an obsession :(
    .-= The latest from Rand´s blog ..Another Facebook Post =-.

  • forsoothsayer

    tab in that case, 3ashan khatry, please say on your about page that you wish you were an “elf”. a smattering of commas momken bardo.

  • Astro
  • Yaseen

    Oatmeal is starting to have influence on you hehe

  • Gus

    Oh, I love this!
    and people should understand that only three dots follow; not more…
    see? :)

  • Dave

    The only time I put a space before a punctuation mark is when it is preceded by a URL. Otherwise punctuation sometimes gets included during the “smart parsing” of the URL and screws the whole thing up.

  • http://andfaraway.net Roba

    Hannah, lol. I love you too! Whoever you are :D

    Jaraad, I haven’t noticed that in Arabic. I have noticed that some text books have such crap typesetting and printing (sadly, especially school books) that everything just shalefs!

    Rand, haha, that’s funny. I really don’t mind if grammar is bad on Twitter, they kind of force you to do that honestly. But the space before a dot even wastes a character!

    forsoothsayer :( za3altini wallah :( elve is the spelling of “elf” in JRR Tolkien’s books and any other proper fantast writer! :)

    Yaseen, I wish I was as funny as the Oatmeal :)

    Gus, lol. 3anjad.

    Dave, actually that particular one used to drive me nuts as neither practices looked good! I then read that on the Economist style guide you don’t need to do that :)

  • Nadine

    I’m with Gus… And what makes it even worse is when they use multiple commas instead of dots!

  • waleed

    hehehe i used to do that ! << with a space :P
    i was always wondering is it okay to have a space before the comma or not, but now i got it.
    thank you for the handy guide

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