“People don’t know why they get so upset about language,” David Crystal told me recently, over Skype from his home in Wales. “ ‘Potato’s,’ with an apostrophe ‘S,’ ” he offered, as an example of the ...

A moment's hesitation... Yes, a full stop here – but shouldn’t there be a comma there? Or would a hyphen be better? Punctuation can be a nuisance; it is often simply neglected. Wrong! The most recent ...

A moment's hesitation... Yes, a full stop here—but shouldn't there be a comma there? Or would a hyphen be better? Punctuation can be a nuisance; it is often simply neglected. Wrong! The most recent ...

When reading a classic book, we tend to pay attention to the themes, the characters, and the story. We say the words aloud. We notice everything, in fact, except for one crucial thing: the punctuation ...