Q. We’re having a discussion about dialogue, suspension points, and complete sentences in my editorial department. There’s some confusion whether it’s appropriate to have a period after suspension points, such as, “He walked the dog yesterday. . . .” Is it okay to have four dots like that? Or could we say, “He walked the dog yesterday . . .”? What about other punctuation? “He walked the dog yesterday . . . !” “He walked the dog yesterday . . . ?” I guess it comes down to this: what is the appropriate use of punctuation with the ellipsis in dialogue?
Q. My colleague and I are having a debate about bulleted lists (I can almost feel you rolling your eyes at yet another list question). We are debating whether something like “Be proactive” and other imperative sentences deserve a period when written as part of a vertical list. What’s your take on this particular dilemma?
Q. I would love to have your take on an ellipsis problem. I have my children’s book MS back from the copyeditor, and I’m not sure she’s handled instances of trailing speech correctly. I would use three dots in each case. But when I check CMOS, all the examples of trailing speech with three dots consist of grammatically incomplete sentences, and mine are all grammatically complete, so maybe they do take four. Are these all correct with four dots, or should it be three? There are tales . . . What did he say the day we threw the cobs . . . I just thought I’d try . . .
Q. A colleague and I work for an educational software company that is producing a music video, but we’re unsure of the conventions for capitalizing and punctuating the subtitled lyrics. It seems like I’ve seen a lot of subtitled lyrics with pretty sparse punctuation, but we’re just not sure and haven’t been able to find any definitive answers so far. Any suggestions?
Q. The sentence in question is “Probability was 1.0% at first, and 2.0% at subsequent, examinations.” I did not have a comma before “examinations,” and another editor added it. Technically, she is correct, since it closes a parenthetical remark, but it reads strangely to me. This is a word-limited document and we can’t rewrite in a way that adds words. Should I leave in the second comma?
Q. When the appositive rule (commas setting off a nonrestrictive appositive) bumps up against the rule that says a question mark shouldn’t be directly followed by a comma, which rule prevails? Here’s the sentence: The album’s first single “Do You Realize??” features a lush arrangement. Is it better to set off “Do You Realize??” with commas? Leave out the commas? Recast the sentence (which is what I wound up doing)? Thanks for your thoughts.
Q. One of my supervisors—a former English teacher—insists that the comma and semicolon in the following sentence are correct. I have no intention of arguing the point, but I would love to learn the rule so I don’t make the mistake again. (Yes, I’m too intimidated to ask him directly.) Is this sentence correctly punctuated, in your view? “Your professionalism supports our record for safety and quality, advances our worldwide reputation; and helps us to grow as an industry leader.”
Q. Hi there! For a sign for bachelorette parties, would the phrase “Bachelorette Out of Control” be more appropriate than “Bachelorette’s Out of Control”? The question is one of contraction, because I don’t see how “Bachelorette’s Out of Control” can be correct without “The” prefacing it. Thank you!
Q. A question recently came up in an English class: how many semicolons can you use in one sentence? We discussed how many you should use, but we were still curious whether or not there is an official limit to how many you can use and still be grammatically correct. What’s your answer?
Q. I checked throughout CMOS and find not a single mention of the interrobang. How could there not even be a single mention of such an intriguing punctuation option?!