Are you a dashaholic? It’s a thing, apparently. I’m more of a colon abuser myself: as if everything I write is so important it requires the colon’s drumroll effect. I’ve known more than a few comma ...

The semicolon has been described as a “graceful pause” in writing. But this graceful punctuation mark is being forgotten. Mark Lasswell wrote a recent piece on the semicolon and why it’s fading away ...

Suspicious that an awkward email or stilted college essay may have been written by artificial intelligence? Some people think there’s a surefire way to tell — the em dash. Writers, journalists and ...

If you've used ChatGPT — or seen AI-generated text — you've likely spotted an em dash. The punctuation mark is not new, but it has been flung into the forefront of social media and everyday writing ...

There is a punctuation mark that Emily Dickinson used obsessively, that Mary Shelley deployed with abandon, that David Foster Wallace built an entire prose architecture around, and that James Baldwin ...

LONDON — Like the fissionable atom, punctuation marks are wee items capable of causing a tremendous release of energy. Passionate disagreement over the use of exclamation points is so familiar that a ...

Editor’s note: This segment was rebroadcast on Jan. 2, 2026. Click here for that audio. The semicolon has been described as a “graceful pause” in writing. But this graceful punctuation mark is being ...