The sun's out and we're heading towards the silly
season so, contrarian coves that we are, we thought this month we'd send
you a serious point about punctuation.
Recently we were asked whether or not Mr
should be followed by a full stop. As you can see by the way
we've just written it, we reckon not. When it comes to abbreviations - eg Mr,
Dr, ie etc - we adapt The Economist's less is more rule on
capital letters: if in doubt use lower case unless it looks absurd.
Indeed less is more is a pretty good
principle to adopt for all punctuation. Full stops, commas,
dashes and so on are there to help rather than hinder understanding. Too
many and you're in danger of obstructing the flow of your communication,
like barnacles on a boat. So as a general rule we'd say that if
a piece of punctuation doesn't aid clarity or add character, leave it
out.
Dr.? No!
kind regards
Nick
...........................................
Nick Hanson
ampers& limited
t: +44 (0)20 7379 5869
f: +44 (0)20 7379 5875
www.wherewordswork.com
To be deleted from our list, please reply with REMOVE in the subject
line.