Punctuating War

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Written by Lucia M | 28 November 2008
Posted in SOMM Blogs - General Blogs

A simple word growing into a sentence creates a book. Books are read and thus a story is told. Congratulations, this is now the third sentence of a something. I don't know what this is yet. You'll tell me if it's good, right? I had a word, then a sentence. Now I have a short paragraph. Let's see if I can get more.

Skip a line. Am I indenting? No. This skipped line will tell you what's going on. Three periods and one question mark so far. Four. Five, six and seven. I'm developing another paragraph. I should be proud of myself. I am in the middle of writing the second paragraph. I hope it's longer than the first. Do you think it will be longer than the first? I used a question mark! An exclamation point! Excitement! That's what an exclamation point means. This paragraph is longer than the first. Let us move on.

Another blank line, a new paragraph starts. An exclamation point means excitement, aren't you excited? And a question mark means a question! This is all very exciting. A period hmmm... not excitement, not questioning... A period is for your average run of the mill sentence. It doesn't ask anything and it isn't for that crazy, amazing excitement that everybody loves. Exclamation point, question mark and period. Punctuation. I like it. Little boundaries to contain simple words. Boundaries like countries. What if sentences were like countries and the punctuation like cannons?

Exclamation points are nuclear bombs, always ready to explode. The excitement they contain just seems to burst at the seams. Sometimes I'm afraid to look at them; the slightest nudge might cause them to collapse. They could throw shrapnel at me in an explosion of feeling. At the same time the sentence could collapse upon itself, not worthy of the excitement it's supposed to carry.

A question mark wants to stay out of things but feels it must say something. It teeters on that edge called ‘should I'? A question mark wants to be Switzerland but at the same time has stronger convictions that yearn to break out and criticize how something is done. The question mark knows things, but doesn't say anything. I think I'm a question mark; at least I want to be.

Periods are weird. You never know what is going on when you talk to a period. One minute you are completely at ease and then the next he period declares war upon your soul. Periods like fighting but periods also like peace. Conflict reigns within a period's grasp. A period yearns to be known, because it is so common. It is being common that makes a period strive to be something more. Every period would love to end the most important sentence in the world. A period dreams of being known and will do what it can do gain its stardom, even if it means using other punctuation.

Periods are sly; they use commas, colons and semicolons to push out exclamation points and question marks. Comas, colons and semicolons are the spies that pepper any international affair. These spies are necessary but are always dispensable. Any sentence can be reworded a split if someone suspects something sneaky.

Colons want to be, but cannot. They want to be on their own, they want to be a part of. They are a territory of the period's country. They stand alongside a period and fight for the cause. Sometimes they support, sometimes not. They are pulled along for the ride because the period commands it. No one knows for certain what a colon wants, the period overrides all.

Commas want peace; they are treaties between the lands. Parts of sentences sign a comma to join together against the world outside. Smaller sentences unite to save each other. Sometimes the commas are forced and the treaty collapses. Periods love these; they think that it will make them known. If someone is careful they go back and fix the clauses in the treaty and the sentence is either split or reworded.

Semicolons are war itself. They smash two sentences together and watch the fight. Anyone who wants action should ignore the excitement of those exclamation points and focus upon what the semicolons have to say.

But what does a semicolon have to say? That's up to the words, and what are words other than what is said. Words are the humans that guide the wars. Without humans there would be no war, the same goes for words. Punctuation cannot exist without words, words are what bring a sentence or a paragraph together. A paragraph would then bring a story together and contribute to a book. Books let stories be known and without punctuation no one would be able to tell when one sentence ended and when one started the driving force of words guides humanity just as humanity guides words once you take away the punctuation the words have an odd meaning but they don't fight with each other not fighting with each other makes the words harder to understand and everything seems to run together in a blob that means nothing to society.

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