We all have a favorite punctuation mark. What’s your lobster punctuation mark?
If that reference does not hit, you are either older or younger than my mean audience, and welcome! Happy to have you. Lobsters fall in love for life, and it’s a well-known writer fact that once a punctuation mark has you in its claws, editors will forever nag you to cut them back in your work.
Me, personally, I’m a big fan of the em dash. I write long sentences, and an em dash is a good way to act like I KNOW it’s long so an editor can’t yell at me. Here’s an em dash, I thought about ending it here, but I just had so much more to say. You can take a breath, though, and absorb the brilliance while you move to the other side of the em dash.
It’s a good punctuation mark for a Gemini. Two sides, two thoughts, they might be joined, but they also might be completely disparate fragments of my muddled brain.
Now it’s your turn! Tell me what punctuation mark gives you — or your writing — life. Leave me a comment or a response on whichever social platform you find this. I can’t wait to hear from you.
My favorite punctuation mark (though I realize it almost certainly doesn't brighten my writing) is the parenthesis (see what I did there?). I like it because at least in informal writing I like to write the way I talk (and I am always interrupting myself).
Incidentally, and sorry to be That Person...lobsters are monogamous only for 2 weeks and do not otherwise mate "for life." I only learned this disappointing truth recently, from a book review in the NY Times. I can't believe Phoebe would spread misinformation!