Page 166 - DENG102_COMMUNICATION_SKILLS_II

Unit 11: Use of Capitals and Basic Punctuations

4. To separate items in a series when the former contain commas notes

Example: We called on Mr. Singh, the president; Mr. Jain, the Vice President and general
manager; Mr. Basu, the controller of accounts; and Mr. ]ha, the secretary.
We chose these people because they held responsible positions, both within the company
and in organizations outside; because they had valuable experience; because they had the
ability to work well with others; and because they all had the time for outside work.

Do not use the semi-colon

1. To separate a main clause from a subordinate clause

Example: WRONG: Mr. Singh was named honorary president; because of his long
association with the firm.
RIGHT: Mr. Singh was named honorary president because of his long association with the
firm.
!

Caution Except in (4) above, the semi-colon always separates one main clause from another
main clause.

11.2.5 Hyphen (-)

A hyphen joins two or more words together (e.g. x-ray, door-to-door) while a dash separates
words into parenthetical statements. (e.g. She was trapped - no escape was possible. Usually,
hyphens are used to avoid confusion or uncertainty but today most hyphenated words are used
without a hyphen as well (e.g. e-mail and email, now-a-days and nowadays). In many cases though
a hyphen does make the sense clear:

Example: 1. I am thinking of re-covering my car (to put a new cover on it)
2. I would like to recover my car. (Perhaps from someone who has borrowed
it as this means ‘to get it back’)

Hyphens in compound Words

Hyphens are used in many compound words to show that the constituent words have a combined
meaning.

Example: Sister-in-law, kind-hearted, computer-aided, user-generated, etc.
Or they can also be used to show that there is a relationship between the words that make up the
compound.

Example: Rock-forming minerals are minerals that form rocks.
But you don’t need to use them in every type of compound word.

Hyphens and numbers

We use a hyphen with compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine.

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