The rule is: the word 'it's' {with apostrophe} stands for 'it is' or 'it has'. If the word does not stand for 'it is' or 'it has' then what you require is 'its'. This is extremely easy to grasp....

In her autobiographical Giving Up the Ghost {2003}, Hilary Mantel reveals: I have always been addicted to something or other, usually something there's no support group for. Semicolons, for instance,...

We read privately, mentally listening to the writer's voice and translating the writer's thoughts. The book remains static and fixed; the reader journeys through it. Picking up the book in the first...

The insult is the weak weapon.

There is even a rather delightful publication for children called The Punctuation Repair Kit, which takes the line Hey! It's uncool to be stupid! - which is a lie, of course, but you have to admire...

Once someone has shown you a convincingly different way of looking at the world, it's hard to remember how you saw it before.

Come inside," it says, "for CD's, VIDEO's, DVD's, and BOOK's.

In Beachcomber's hilarious columns about the Apostropher Royal in The Express, a certain perversely comforting law is often reiterated: the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th...

That's why they came up with the emoticon, too-the emoticon being the greatest {or most desperate, depending how you look at it} advance in punctuation since the question mark in the reign of...

Although I would appreciate it if you tried not to sound so bloody sarcastic. Beelzebub himself ticked me off the other day for not getting the proper respect from you blasted cats. He came all the...

As we shall see, the tractable apostrophe has always done its proper jobs in our language with enthusiasm and elegance, but it has never been taken seriously enough; its talent for adaptability has...

I have been told that the dying words of one famous 20th-century writer were, I should have used fewer semicolons

In fact, it seemed to me that every single item on the news – concerning economic doom and political hypocrisy and social breakdown – was not news at all. What I could hear was just a series of...

The rule is: the word it's {with apostrophe} stands for it is or it has. If the word does not stand for it is or it has then what you require is its. This is extremely easy to grasp. Getting your...

nothing is straightforward in the world of literary taste.

Some may say that the British are obsessed with class difference and that knowing your apostrophes is a way of belittling the uneducated. To which accusation, I say {mainly}, 'Pah!' How can it be a...

So the particular strengths of the colon are beginning to become clear. A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence, and in its simplest usage it rather theatrically announces what is to...

Writers jealous of their individual style are obliged to wring the utmost effect from a tiny range of marks – which explains why they get so desperate when their choices are challenged {or...