exclamation mark ( ! )


An exclamation mark or exclamation point is a punctuation mark: ! It is usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume, and often marks the end of a sentence.

brackets (( )), ([ ]), ({ }), (< >)

Brackets are punctuation marks used in pairs to set apart or interject text within other text. In computer science, the term is sometimes said to strictly apply to the square or box type.[1]

There are four main types of brackets:

* round brackets, open brackets, or parentheses: ( )
* square brackets, closed brackets, or box brackets: [ ]
* curly brackets or braces: { }
* angle brackets, diamond brackets, or chevrons: < >

All these forms may be used according to typographical conventions that may vary from publication to publication and may vary even more from language to language.

comma ( , )

A comma ( , ) is a punctuation mark. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline of the text. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight, or with the appearance of a small filled-in number 9.

The comma is used in many contexts and languages, principally for separating things. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word comma comes directly from the Greek komma (?????), which means something cut off or a short clause.

apostrophe ( ’ ' )

The apostrophe ( ’ or ' ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets. In English it has two main functions: it marks omissions, and it assists in marking the possessives of all nouns and many pronouns. (In strictly limited cases, it is allowed to assist in marking plurals, but most authorities now disapprove of such usage; see below.) According to the OED, the word comes ultimately from Greek (the accent of 'turning away', or elision), through Latin and French.[1]

The apostrophe is different from the closing single quotation mark (usually rendered identically but serving a quite different purpose), and from the similar-looking prime (which is used to indicate measurement in feet or arcminutes, and for various mathematical purposes).

ellipsis ( …, ... )

Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from the Greek: élleipsis, "omission") in printing and writing refers to a mark or series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word or a phrase from the original text. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence (aposiopesis).

The most common form of an ellipsis is a row of three periods (...). Forms encountered less often are: three asterisks (***), one em dash (—), multiple en dashes (––), and the Unicode Ellipsis symbol […].

full stop (period) ( . )

A full stop or period (sometimes stop, full point, or dot), is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of several different types of sentences in English and many other languages. A full stop consists of a small dot placed at the end of a line of text, such as at the end of this sentence.

hyphen ( - )

A hyphen ( - ) is a punctuation mark. It is used both to join words and also to separate syllables of a single word. It is often confused with the dashes ( –, — ), which are longer and have different uses, and with the minus sign ( - ) which is also longer. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation.

slash/stroke ( / )

The slash ( / ) is a punctuation mark. It is also called a virgule, diagonal, stroke, forward slash, oblique dash, slant, separatrix, scratch comma, or whack.[1] In Unicode, the slash is called SOLIDUS (U+002F), even though a slash is usually distinguished from the solidus (or shilling mark), in that the slash is more nearly vertical.

guillemets ( « » )

Guillemets also called angle quotes, are line segments, pointed as if arrows (« or »), sometimes forming a complementary set of punctuation marks used as a form of quotation mark. The symbol at either end — double « and » or single ‹ and › — is a guillemet. They are used in a number of languages to indicate speech. They are also referred to as symbols for rewind and fast forward.

dashes ( –, — )

A dash is a punctuation mark. It is longer than a hyphen and is used differently. The most common versions of the dash are the en dash (–) and the em dash (—).

question mark (?)

also known as an interrogation point, interrogation mark, question point, query,[1] or eroteme, is a punctuation mark that replaces the Full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence. It can also be used mid-sentence to mark a merely interrogative phrase, where it functions similarly to a comma, such as in the single sentence "Where shall we go? and what shall we do?", but this usage is increasingly rare. The question mark is not used for indirect questions. The question mark character is also often used in place of missing or unknown data.