This may well be destined to be the most boring thread ever, but I'll take my chances. In English at least, punctuation has become a hot topic of late, with books like Eats, Shoots and Leaves - The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation inciting the masses to take action against greengrocers? apostrophes and other evils.
In Spanish it appears that the rules of punctuation are similar to English, perhaps with the exception of the semi-colon ";" to separate clauses - in Spanish it tends to be used in lists of names, titles and occupations. E.g. La reuni?n cont? con la participaci?n del presidente dominicano, Leonel Fern?ndez; el primer ministro brit?nico, Gordon Brown; y el presidente estadounidense, George W Bush. This makes absolute sense, but is not a convention in English grammar.
There is a way in which I notice commas being used, like here:
Leonel Fern?ndez, hab?a prometido al pueblo dominicano que el metro estar?a listo en febrero del 2008.
A comma indicates a pause, but is there really a natural pause between ?Leonel Fern?ndez? and the rest of the sentence? Is it even correct in Spanish? I see it all the time, which makes me wonder.
I also noticed that my son?s second grade Spanish language textbook covers all the problem areas like the confusion between b/v, s/c/z and the basic rules of punctuation very meticulously and systematically, yet these errors are still very common across all educational levels as far as I can tell.
In Spanish it appears that the rules of punctuation are similar to English, perhaps with the exception of the semi-colon ";" to separate clauses - in Spanish it tends to be used in lists of names, titles and occupations. E.g. La reuni?n cont? con la participaci?n del presidente dominicano, Leonel Fern?ndez; el primer ministro brit?nico, Gordon Brown; y el presidente estadounidense, George W Bush. This makes absolute sense, but is not a convention in English grammar.
There is a way in which I notice commas being used, like here:
Leonel Fern?ndez, hab?a prometido al pueblo dominicano que el metro estar?a listo en febrero del 2008.
A comma indicates a pause, but is there really a natural pause between ?Leonel Fern?ndez? and the rest of the sentence? Is it even correct in Spanish? I see it all the time, which makes me wonder.
I also noticed that my son?s second grade Spanish language textbook covers all the problem areas like the confusion between b/v, s/c/z and the basic rules of punctuation very meticulously and systematically, yet these errors are still very common across all educational levels as far as I can tell.