 Punctuation
 Grammar
 Usage
◦ 62 Questions
 After
Jeremy finished eating his
breakfast, he finally pulled the
cat off his face.
 32b – Comma after introductory
clause or phrase.
 Lucy
just bought herself a new
prosthetic limb, which cost her
an arm and a leg.
 32e – Use comma(s) to set off
nonrestrictive phrases.
 Scuba
diving, from what I’ve
heard, is a glorious experience.
 32f – Use commas to set off
parenthetical expressions.
ballet Swan Lake
will be performed in a large bowl
of soup on Tuesday.
 32e – No comma(s) to set off
restrictive appositives.
 Tchaikovsky’s
Adelaide started a fire in the
mailbox, and she danced gleefully
in the glow of the growing flames.
 32a –Comma before a coordinating
conjunction joining two
independent clauses.

 Most
people pursue material,
not spiritual, improvement.
 32f – Use commas to set off
contrasting elements.
latest Batman film, The Dark
Knight, earned over $27 at the
box office.
 32e - Use comma(s) to set off
nonrestrictive appositives.
 The
A
happy hamburger includes a
slice of fresh tomato and a really
crunchy pickle.
 32a – No comma, as second
clause has no subject.
 George
Carlin asked, “What does
it mean to pre-board? Do you get
on before you get on?”
 32h – Use commas to set off or
introduce direct quotations.



The White House, located at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20500, will be sold at
public auction next Thursday.
32f – Use commas to set off parenthetical
information.
32i – Set off all elements of an address except for
the zip code with commas.
Sydney named her two cats after
famous criminals: Bonnie and Clyde.
 35a – Use colon after independent
clause to introduce list, appositive,
or direct quotation.

Other famous criminal include Al
Capone, Ma Barker, Richard Nixon,
and Charles Manson.
 35a – Use colon after independent
clause to introduce list, appositive,
or direct quotation.

 Farley
collected three IOUs on
his rounds yesterday.
 36d – Do not use apostrophe
to pluralize abbreviations.
 Carlyle
was born back in the
‘70s.
 36 – Use apostrophe to indicate
ellipsing but not to indicate
plurals in numbers.
My puppy Edmonds (who is only six
years old) is already potty trained.
 33h – Never use a comma before a
parenthesis.
 Could also set off Edmonds with
commas if it is a nonrestrictive
appositive.

 The
Normandy invasion on June
6 was the start of Operation
Overlord.
 32i – Use commas to set off only
the year when using dates.
 Living
a healthy life means eating
lots of vegetables that are rich in
vitamins.
 32e – No comma(s) to set off
restrictive phrases.
Cell phones have become very
common nowadays; however, most
people have never eaten one.
 32f – Use semicolon and comma to
set off most transitional
expressions.



The brazen criminal’s escapades, however,
eventually landed him in jail.
32f - Use semicolon and comma to set off most
transitional expressions, except when the
expression blends smoothly, causing little or no
pause or if it does not significantly shift the
sentence’s direction. In the latter instance, use
only commas to set off the phrase or expression.
 The
morning of June 24, 1957,
began with little fanfare.
 32i – Use commas to set off
the year when using dates.
Occasionally Melba has toast with
her eggs, but this morning she had
salmon.
 33h – (Almost) never put a comma
after a coordinating conjunction.
 Optional comma after Occasionally.

Steven Wright said that “I planted
some bird seed. A bird came up.
Now I don't know what to feed it.”
 32h – Use commas to set off or
introduce direct quotations except
when using that as a conjunction.

 Dominique’s
car wouldn’t start
this morning.
 36 – Use apostrophe to show
possession or contraction.
An invitation for M. David
McSquiggle, Ph.D., will be mailed in
the morning.
 32i – If a title follows a name, set
title off with commas. This
particular title also needs periods.

 Whose
underwear is this?
 36e – Who’s/whose.



Cindy got sick on Wednesday; by Saturday she
was dead.
34a – Use semicolon between independent
clauses not joined with a coordinating
conjunction.
Can also add comma and conjunction, use a
dash, or create two sentences. Another option is
a comma after Saturday.



Lunch will comprise eggs with ham, cheese, and
bacon; salad with Romaine lettuce, croutons, and
boll weevils; and potatoes with a burgundy
reduction.
34c – Use semicolon between items in a series
containing internal punctuation.
Usage – Comprise.
 Emulsified
spiders can be
made into fancy earrings.
 36 – Do not use commas to
indicate plurals.





For Christmas Enrique got all sorts of presents, a
food basket, and a glass eye.
32c – Comma between all items in a series.
Might also consider that the food basket and the
glass eye are examples of the presents, so:
For Christmas Enrique got all sorts of presents: a
food basket and a glass eye.
Optional comma after Christmas.
Shakespeare writes, “To be or not to
be.”
 37f – End punctuation inside quotation
marks (unless a parenthetical citation
follows).
 27f – Use present tense when quoting
or paraphrasing literary works.

 Eating
127 eggs in an hour
hurts a lot.
 21b – Make verbs agree in
number with the subject.
I
locked myself out of the
house this morning chasing
after the cat.
 19 – Sentence fragments.
 Congress
takes recess in January.
 21f – Treat collective nouns as
singular unless the meaning is
clearly plural.
 The
dictionary defines truculent
as aggressively hostile or
belligerent.
 23d – We all know this one by
now.
Jimmy, along with the entire
cheerleading squad, was caught in the
locker room.
 21b – Phrases like as well as, in

addition to, accompanied by, together
with, and along with do not make a
singular subject plural.
 In
New York are found the Statue
of Liberty and the U.N.
 21g – Make verb agree with
subject even when subject
follows the verb.
 Prunella
ran away crying
because her mother and she
argued again.
 24a – Strip-away test.
 Management
is usually
unconcerned about us peons.
 24d – Strip-away test.
 2008
was a very wet year; it
set records for rainfall.
 20 – Comma splice.
 Which
of these two dresses looks
better on me?
 26c – Use comparative to
compare two things, the
superlative for three or more.
 Clarice
and Hannibal (went/had
gone) out to dinner last week.
 27 – Simple past (went) or past
perfect (had gone), but not both.
 The
two best students, Bettina
and I, each got to skip the
final.
 24b – Strip-away test.
 College
is very demanding, but
we accept this insert noun here
as a necessary evil.
 23b – Never leave a vague
pronoun standing alone. Ever.
 When
someone is drunk, he or
she can do some crazy things.
 22a – Pronoun-antecedent
agreement.
 Toby
looks really slim now
that he’s lost 142 pounds.
 26a – Use adverbs, not
adjectives, to modify verbs.
 The
man with three noses was
more unique (need to change
this phrase) than anything else
we saw at the carnival.
 26d – Do not use modifiers for
absolute concepts.
 Rules
of the Road states that
drivers should always yield to the
car arriving at a four-way stop
first.
 23d – Generally, avoid using
“you.”
 The
car ran perfectly after we
spent all week tuning the motor.
 26a – Use adverbs, not
adjectives, to modify verbs.
 If
I were rich, I’d buy all of you a
gold-plated pizza.
 27g – Use the subjunctive with
contrary-to-fact clauses
beginning with if.