Jj is for Jottings 73.  Prince William on Punctuation and Social Media.

Prince William addressed a group of female students at a London school on the issue of cyberbullying.  He talked about the stress of trying to live up to all the faked “perfection” seen online, and he urged students to put down their devices, in order to improve mental health.  He said that they need to balance their time with other activities, especially outside, and not to be on a screen all day because “it takes you into a different world.”

Prince William also made the point about how often feelings can be hurt be text messages and social media, saying: “Unless you punctuate it correctly — I’m not the best at punctuation and I’m not the grammar police, either — you can read it in 100 different ways.”  He also went on to talk about the importance of emotional intelligence and sharing feelings, but that is not my focus today.

Punctuation – many people ignore it and consider it of no importance, but that is absolutely untrue.  A message can be completely changed by those little marks on the page, even without changing the words themselves.  Here are a couple of examples:

“Let’s eat, Grandma.”

With the comma, these words indicate that the speaker is talking to their grandma and suggesting that they eat dinner. Watch what happens when you remove the comma:

“Let’s eat Grandma.”

Without the comma, the speaker is suggesting that they eat their grandma!

Another example:

“Please replace the chair’s.”  The chair’s what?

Clearly, poor punctuation can interfere with the meaning of the message, and for people who punctuate correctly, each punctuation error is a stumbling block to fluent reading, since one must  re-read parts to check what is really meant.  In text messages and on social media, the writer is not present for you to check what was really meant; in conversation you can clarify meanings and sort out misunderstandings on the spot.

There is much more I could say about punctuation.  I’m sure it will work its way into posts at some point!

 

Source of photo:  World Bank Photo Collection.