Terminology: Common punctuation symbols
Summary of the visual appearance and usage of common punctuation symbols in the English language:
| Symbol | Symbol name | Symbol design description |
’ | Apostrophe | The apostrophe is used to indicate either:
- omitted numbers (eg '30s);
- omitted letters (eg hangin');
- a contraction (eg didn't);
- possessive ownership (eg John's bag).
|
' | Apostrophe (default) | Any decent graphic designer will ensure that this ugly default apostrophe is not used on printed material. Unfortunately keyboards don't easily differentiate, so for the moment, the ugly default apostrophe (which us upright) seems to have won the online battle. |
‘ | Quotation mark: left single | Also known as inverted commas or speech marks. |
’ | Quotation mark: right single | |
“ | Quotation mark: left double | |
” | Quotation mark: right double | |
" | Quotation mark: double (default) | Any decent graphic designer will ensure that this ugly default double quotation mark is not used on printed material. Unfortunately keyboards don't easily differentiate, so for the moment, the ugly default double quotation mark (which us upright) seems to have won the online battle. |
( ) | Brackets: round | Also known as parenthesis. |
[ ] | Brackets: square | |
{ } | Brackets: curly | Also known as braces. |
: | Colon | |
; | Semicolon | |
, | Comma | |
. | Full stop | Also known as period in United States of America. |
- | Hyphen or minus sign | Although they are typographically different, the hyphen and minus sign are generally accepted as interchangeable.
- The hyphen joins two or more words (eg compound word such as "blue-green"). It's used without spaces before or after the hyphen.
- The minus sign is the negative character used in maths.
|
– | Dash: en | The en dash is:
- Used to indicate inclusive numbers (eg pages 32–33) or inclusive date ranges (eg 9–12 June). It's used without spaces before or after the en dash.
- The width of the letter capital "N" in that font.
|
— | Dash: em | The em dash is:
- Used as a strong break in a sentence.
- The width of the letter capital "M" in that font.
|
_ | Underscore | |
… | Ellipsis | |
! | Exclamation mark | |
? | Question mark | |
‽ | Interrobang | Question mark and exclamation mark combined. |
\ | Backslash | |
/ | Forward slash | Also known as a stroke or virgule. The forward slash character:
- Represents "per", such as metres/second.
- Separate parts of text.
|
⁄ | Solidus | Line used to represent a fraction. |
