65 Now write your own comment on the blog post in 27 observing the punctuation rules above. WRITING 30 Getting punctuation right Numbers and dates Use commas (,) instead of full stops (.) as thousands separator: 1,000; 1,000,000. Use full stops as decimal separators instead of commas: 5.73; 2.5. Don’t use full stops in ordinal numbers or dates: 1st; 3 November. Exclamation marks (!) and dashes (–) Exclamation marks and dashes are rather informal (e.g. I quite like him – he’s really cute!), so avoid them in a formal piece of writing. Don’t confuse a dash with a hyphen, which is used between words or parts of words (e.g. non-violent protest, mother-in-law). Direct speech In direct speech, we enclose what is said within a pair of single or double quotation marks (‘…’/“…”). English uses slightly different punctuation conventions for direct speech than German: You don’t usually use a colon (:) to introduce direct speech, commas are more common: He added, “I’m really pleased to see you.” The quotation marks always have to be placed at the top of the line, also at the beginning: She asked, “Where are my keys?” Apostrophes (’) To show that letters have been left out: It’s time to go instead of It is time to go. (But don’t confuse it’s with its, the possessive pronoun: We visited the town and learned about its history.) To denote possession: a young person’s attitude (singular); teenagers’ hopes and worries (plural). Irregular plurals are treated like singular plurals: children’s table manners or people’s attitudes. If a person’s name ends in -s, we can either add ’ or ’s: James’ dad and James’s dad are both correct. Commas (,) A good rule of thumb is that a comma usually indicates a pause in speech. If you read a sentence aloud, you will notice that you automatically pause after certain expressions: Let’s eat, grandma! (Not: Let’s eat grandma!)/Senior citizens would rather watch conventional films. Teenagers, however, prefer …/Consequently, young people are more interested in …/In conclusion, Austrians are reluctant to … More specific rules apply in the following cases: Main and subordinate clauses: If the subordinate clause comes before the main clause, there is always a comma. There is no comma_ if (when) the subordinate clause comes after the main clause. As punctuation rules in English aren’t usually taught in lower grades, students unfortunately tend to ignore them. However, advanced students should be aware of them_ as they give proof of their command of English. Defining and non-defining relative clauses: A defining relative clause is a sentence part_ which gives essential information for understanding who or what we are talking about. There is no comma before the relative pronoun (which, who, etc.) introducing this clause. Extra information in a relative clause that might be interesting but isn’t essential (and could also be put in brackets) is referred to as non-defining clause, which was covered in greater detail in way2go! 6, p. 169. We use commas to separate the non-defining relative clause from the rest of the sentence. No commas before that, than or in order to: I think_ that citizens should exercise their right to vote./The book was more interesting_ than she’d expected./I wrote them an email_ (in order) to get more information. Nur zu Prüfzw cken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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