There are rules for punctuation, but we don’t always agree on them

Should people use the Oxford comma? Is there a correct number of exclamation points per email? If someone ends a casual text with a period, does that mean they’re mad at you?

This hour: punctuation and how we use it. We talk about the history of punctuation marks, timeless punctuation debates, and how writing for texts and emails has changed the way we use punctuation.

GUESTS:

• RS Benedict: A writer and bureaucrat whose fiction and non-fiction has been published in the New Haven Review, Fangoria, Current Affairs, and a bunch of other places
• Claire Cock-Starkey: Author of Hyphens and Hashtags: The Stories Behind the Symbols on Our Keyboard
• Julia Pistell: Founding member of Sea Tea Improv and one of the hosts of the Literary Disco podcast

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Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired November 3, 2021.

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