This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put. – Attributed to Winston Churchill, rejecting the rule against ending a sentence wi

There is no element in which language resembles music more than in the punctuation marks…. Exclamation points are like silent cymbal clashes, question marks like musical upbeats, colons dominant seventh chords… – Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969), “Punctuation Marks,” Notes to Literature, V

The rules of punctuation seem arbitrary. How can they not, when an apostrophe looks like nothing in this world so much as a comma that can’t keep its feet on the ground? Or when, by simply placing next to that wafting comma its twin, one creates (of all things) a quotation mark? – Richard Lederer and John Shore, Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation

A pronoun… will aptly reflect the number of its antecedent: they does not refer to one person, no matter how many personalities she or he has, or how eager you are to skirt the gender frays. – Karen Elizabeth Gordon, “Agreements,” The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimat