Ancient marks. It might feel as if punctuation has been around forever, but both punctuation marks and their grammatically informing purpose are surprisingly recent.

The period was always the humblest of punctuation marks. Recently, however, it’s started getting angry. I’ve noticed it in my text messages and online chats, where people use the period not ...

Punctuation marks are pretty objective in their purpose within the world of written (and spoken) language. But in an age dominated by the internet, memes and the universal need for ...

Even though there are different ways of presenting the en dash, one thing is clear: it is an all-purpose punctuation mark, and can be used instead of commas and parentheses to create a break in a ...