OK – seriously – in this world of IM & ttyl, how much attention is really paid to punctuation?

Here is a great article from Huffington Post:

“Most people don’t spend much time thinking about punctuation. We’re not most people.When properly used, punctuation can enhance the rhythm of your writing or change its meaning entirely. And yet too many people rely on a scant handful of marks to express themselves.

Commas and periods are the bread and butter of punctuation: familiar, safe…and bland. To spice things up, some writers throw in an exclamation point. Sometimes, to the horror of English teachers and proofreaders everywhere, they use more than one in a row. The lateElmore Leonard advised writers: “Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.” In proofreading parlance, an exclamation point is called a “bang,” and the chronic overuse of them, particularly in text messages and emails, has earned the slang term “bangorrhea.”

In 2013, a Mental_Floss article extolling “13 Little Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using” made the rounds, but although some of them might be useful–the inability of text to convey sarcasm has caused more than one epic misunderstanding–standard keyboards don’t offer the “sarcmark” or the interrobang as options. Here are three readily available, and yet sadly neglected, punctuation marks you should start using today.

Semicolon: The semicolon isn’t exactly obscure, but how often do you actually use it in everyday writing?”

Continue reading here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/grammarly/3-punctuation-marks-to-in_b_4702255.html