Hyperbole (hi-PER-buh-lee) is a language that is obviously exaggerated and not meant to be taken literally. Writers often use hyperbole for emphasis or to be funny. Hyperbole: The Best Thing Ever You can find hyperbole in plenty of English idioms: …

When two words are used together to yield a new meaning, a compound is formed. Compound words can be written in three ways: as open compounds (spelled as two words, e.g., ice cream), closed compounds (joined to form a single …

At first glance, the rules of English capitalization seem simple. You probably know you should capitalize proper nouns and the first word of every sentence. But you also (sometimes) capitalize the first word of a quote. Usually you don’t capitalize …

Anyone who has ever had to memorize a tough-to-spell English word (It’s fuchsia, right? Or is it fuschia? Fushia?) has noticed that the spelling of some words is wildly different from the way we pronounce them. To make matters worse, some words are …

An abbreviation, simply put, is a shortened form of a word. In writing, abbreviations are useful when you need to squeeze a lot of writing into a small space. You can also use them in place of long or cumbersome …

There are two types of slashes: a backslash (\) and a forward slash (/). The backslash is used only for computer coding. The forward slash, often simply referred to as a slash, is a punctuation mark used in English. The only time …

Semicolons (;) are as basic as a period stacked on top of a comma. Does that mean you can use it like either one? Don’t get your hopes up. But don’t let this punctuation mark get you down, either. After all, that …

Quotation marks are used to identify words that someone has said. You’ll often find them in fiction, where they signify dialogue, the words spoken by the characters. In newspapers, journalists use quotation marks to signify that something is a direct quote …

Without question marks, we’d miss out on all kinds of things: invitations, jokes, the Riddler . . . No doubt, the question mark is a nice little piece of punctuation. And, best of all, it’s easy to use! What Is a …

What is a Period? A period, also known as a “full stop” in British English, is a punctuation mark that looks like a tiny circle or dot. It appears at the bottom of a written line and directly follows the preceding character …

Parentheses are punctuation marks that are used to set off information within a text or paragraph. Outside the realm of emoticons, parentheses always come in pairs. They can enclose a single word, a phrase, or even an entire sentence. Typically, the …

A hyphen (-) is a punctuation mark that’s used to join words or parts of words. It’s not interchangeable with other types of dashes. Use a hyphen in a compound modifier when the modifier comes before the word it’s modifying. If you’re …

The exclamation point also called an exclamation mark, is a punctuation mark that goes at the end of certain sentences. It’s less common than the period or question mark, but it’s very easy to use. Some might say it’s too easy to use. What Is an …

Those three little dots are called ellipsis (plural: ellipses). The term ellipsis comes from the Greek word meaning “omission,” and that’s just what an ellipsis does—it shows that something has been left out. When you’re quoting someone, you can use …

A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text (not at the bottom: that’s an underscore). It’s longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause. Dashes …

Ah, the comma. Of all the punctuation marks in English, this one is perhaps the most abused and misused. And it’s no wonder. There are lots of rules about comma usage, and often the factors that determine whether you should use one …