Over 2,000 years later, punctuation still serves essentially the same purpose. Although most words are now written to be read silently to oneself, punctuation continues to tell us how to hear the words in our heads. A few well-placed dots and squiggles let us know when to pause or change inflection.

Having been free to evolve for more than two millennia, punctuation’s bag of tricks unsurprisingly became pretty comprehensive long ago. New punctuation marks rarely emerge blinking into the sunlight. Most disappear from view again almost at once. Rare indeed is the punctuation mark that captures the public’s imagination and becomes part of common English usage. The last example was arguably the introduction of the quotation mark to denote direct speech in the early 18^th century. However, in this world of texts and Twitter, where so much casual conversation is actually written rather than spoken, perhaps one or two forgotten punctuation marks deserve another chance.

Take the interrobang (‽), for example, which, as the name and look suggests, literally combines the interrogation of the question mark with the dramatic stress (or ‘bang’ if you prefer) of the exclamation mark. Introduced in 1967 but hardly ever seen today, surely the interrobang deserves a renaissance for rhetorical exclamations like: “WTF‽” and: “He said what‽”.

And how about a campaign for the use of the wonderfully named sarcastrophe? With office politics meaning peace is often a fragile commodity in the corporate world, friction can easily surface if a well-intentioned email is misinterpreted. A sincere expression of gratitude, like: “You were a great help”, could be seen as a sarcastic rebuke if the over-sensitive reader is having a bad day. Without the tell-tale inflections of speech, irony can easily be overlooked, or mistakenly perceived, when words are simply written down. Unleash the sarcastrophe (^), however, and all becomes clear. The phrase: “You were a great help” offers genuine thanks, but: ^You were a great help^ leaves the recipient in no doubt that their efforts were worse than useless.

Given that punctuation ultimately exists to improve the clarity of communication, it seems odd that something as potentially useful as the sarcastrophe has never really taken off. Perhaps it was a victim of its own success, hoist by its own petard? “The sarcastrophe – oh, yes, that’s a ^really good^ idea.”

Unsurprisingly, therefore, journalists despise the wasted word. Every sub-editor’s heart beats to the rhythm of “Shorter, Shorter, Shorter”.

A quick example of how easily words can be wasted: “Both Alec and Kenny agreed that old-age pensioners would soon find the brand new tea-making machine had become an absolutely vital part of their lives.” Perhaps, at first glance, that sentence does not seem so painfully verbose. But what if we remove the underlined words? “Both Alec and Kenny agreed that old-age pensioners would soon find the brand new tea-making machine to have become an absolutely vital part of their lives.” The sentence that remains: “Alec and Kenny agreed pensioners would soon find the new tea-making machine vital,” makes sense and contains all the points of the previous version.

The principles of good writing are always worth applying and become particularly important when dealing with the media. With a little effort, the first draft of any news story (or other piece of text) can be edited to achieve a shorter, better version. The goal of concision is not just to make grumpy sub-editors happy. The goal is to ensure even the busiest commuters know the news.

Can anyone give a convincing defence for this convention? One argument, present at the birth of the notion of the ‘split infinitive’, is that other languages (and in particular the colossus that is Latin) never split infinitives, so why should English be any different? But in most languages, the infinitive is a single word (e.g. the French “manger” for “to eat” or the Italian “parlare” for “to speak”), which means splitting the infinitive is an impossible feat anyway. Imposing the grammar of one language onto another language is clearly an absurd notion that can only lead to a ridiculous hybrid, like saying that tennis must now be played with rugby balls.

We should embrace, not attack, the extraordinary flexibility, scope and variety of the English language. If, like the fine crew of the starship ‘Enterprise’, you want “to boldly go where no man has gone before”, why should you have “to go boldly” or “boldly to go” instead? The rhythm of the phrase alone clearly means “to boldly go” sounds much more powerful on the ear than the alternatives.

Language should exist to let you say exactly what you want to say, exactly as you wish to say it. If you want to boldly go ahead and split some infinitives, why should anyone stop you?

1. ‘Principal’ means ‘main’. You have a ‘principal’ concern, not a ‘principle’ one.

2. To ‘refute’ something is to prove it wrong. To ‘deny’ something is merely to claim it to be wrong.

3. You didn’t really just write about what ‘would of happened’, did you?

4. Random Capital Letter Syndrome. Ordinary words do not Become Important just by adding some Capital Letters.

5. ‘Effect’ is a noun. ‘Affect’ is a verb. So if you ‘affect’ a situation, you will cause an ‘effect’.

What do you think? What are the howlers that drive you mad?

All of which leaves our student feeling pleased, until he is asked to explain that the party has been a total disaster. If nobody was happy, we’ve left plural nouns behind and we’ve even left singular nouns behind. We’re down to nothing. We have to apply happiness to ‘none of the children’.

Opinion is divided on how to approach this problem, but the best rule of thumb is surely to decide whether you are applying ‘none of the…’ to a plural or singular noun and then act accordingly. The result will certainly sound right, which is a pretty good place to start.

The idea, for example, that: “None of the children was happy” sounds awkward on the ear to many people, who feel that we are surely assessing the entire group of children in order to reach our conclusion. ‘Children’ is a plural noun and so: “None of the children were happy” sounds more comfortable. (Interestingly, “not one of the children was happy” sounds absolutely fine, which is why some grammarians, who believe the word ‘none’ is a direct contraction of ‘not one’, insist that ‘none’ must always be a singular pronoun. However, most academics acknowledge that the origins of the word ‘none’ are uncertain.)

By extension, therefore, saying: “None of the meeting was interesting” sounds perfectly reasonable, as ‘meeting’ is a singular noun, whereas: “None of the meeting were interesting” is clearly nonsense.

So, if you’re adopting the phrase “none of the noun” in a sentence, apply the verb to the noun and you should be on safe ground.

If none of this blog was useful, or none of the points were helpful, feel free to write in and complain. But not to us.