Not long ago, I mentioned in this space that a period or comma always comes before a closing quotation mark. For example: Beth used the word “covert,” not the word “clandestine.” I mentioned, too, ...

We had a good thing going for a while, but it could soon be toast. By “we,” I mean readers, writers and editors. By “a good thing,” I mean a system for placing periods and commas relative to quotation ...

An error has occurred. Please try again. With a Lewiston Sun Journal subscription, you can gift 5 articles each month. It looks like you do not have any active ...

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 speed, these marks ...

If you hang out with anyone under 30, you might have noticed that punctuation has been getting a bad rap lately, especially when it comes to texting. While putting a period at the end of a sentence ...

James Joyce's tome 'Finnegans Wake' famously breaks the rules of normal prose through its unusual, dreamlike stream of consciousness, and new work in chaos theory takes a closer look at how Joyce's ...