Full-stop

I like short sentences. I like full-stops. I'm not sure about semi-colons; a bit fussy for my liking and they can make sentences very long-winded, so by the end of it all, you've forgotten what the point is. Brackets are the same as semi-colons (going off on some tangent, so that by the time you get back to the original sentence, you've forgotten what the hell the point is) and are often an excuse for poor writing.

Dashes are usually lazy, but hyphens are good, as long as you don't use multlple hypens, as Sociologists love to do (except in exceptional circumstances, as my Brother-in-Law might say in parenthesis) with their jargon-filled, long-winded, ugly-sounding, psycho-socio-neo-culinary gobbledegook.

Paragraphs are essential, but I'm sure there are more of them about these days.

There is a trend for paragraphs to be short and sweet - I blame journalists who love dashes.

'Apostrophes are essential', someone once said, and so are commas, without which we would all be floundering in a breathless stream of consciousness. Unless, of course, we use full-stops all the time.

Colons are good for three reasons: Firstly, they make it clear you about to make a point; secondly, it means you have an excuse to use the semi colon; and finally, it shows that you are not completely ignorant. You could, of course, use a full-stop instead of a semi-colon most of the time.

Exclamation marks, I think, should generally be avoided, but not always. Exclamation marks are high octane. It's no good being turbo-charged all the time!

Question marks are good, aren't they? But not lots of them in a row, unless, like exclamation marks, you want to convey the idea that you are in an excitable state of mind!!!

And another thing. My mother told me never to start a sentence, let alone a paragraph, with 'And'. Or 'But'. Or 'Or'. I know. I know. It's not a sentence without a verb. But language evolves. I quite like a sentence that starts with 'And' or 'Which' even. I'm more equivocal about starting a sentence with 'But' because it reminds me of semi-literate journalists again. But, so what?

My mother also told me that 'i' is before 'c' except after 'c', but there are so many exceptions that the rule is pretty useless. And, while I am on a rant, she led me up the garden path about Father Christmas, too. But I won't hold it against her.

I digress. I have drifted away from full-stops. Full-stops are my thing. I love them. Where would we be without them? Could question marks replace them? Of course not. Unless, of course, you want to massacre our language completely and use bullet points.

Bullet points should have been shot at birth, along with Powerpoint presentations. They are the written equivalent of clip art cartoons.

Have I forgotten anything? There is something I know I have not mentioned, which I am quite fond of...