--- title: Punctuation that changes meaning — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Punctuation that changes meaning», a lesson of the language course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Punctuation marks are the traffic signs of writing: they tell the reader where to stop, pause, ask or shout, and moving one can change t --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / Punctuation that changes meaning # Punctuation that changes meaning Lesson 14 of the language course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/0/) — Punctuation marks are the traffic signs of writing: they tell the reader where to stop, pause, ask or shout, and moving one can change the whole meaning. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/1/) — The famous one: "Let's eat Grandma!" makes Grandma the dinner, while "Let's eat, Grandma!" invites her to the table; the comma before a name you're talking to saves lives. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/2/) — "A panda eats shoots and leaves" means it eats bamboo shoots and leaves; add commas, "eats, shoots and leaves", and the panda has lunch, fires a gun and walks out; that joke is the title of a famous British book about punctuation. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/3/) — Pairs of commas decide who said what: "The teacher said the pupil is a fool" and "The teacher, said the pupil, is a fool" swap who gets insulted. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/5/) — A comma shows a short pause or separates parts of a sentence; a full stop ends a sentence. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/6/) — A comma goes before or after the name of a person you are talking to: "Let's eat, Grandma!" - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/7/) — "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" is the title of a famous British book about punctuation; shoots are young plant stems. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/8/) — A run-on sentence joins two or more complete sentences with no proper punctuation; fix it with full stops or joining words. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/9/) — A long sentence is not a run-on if it is punctuated properly. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/10/) — A pair of commas can put extra words to one side and change who is speaking: "The teacher, said the pupil, is a fool." - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/11/) — A colon (:) introduces something; with "Woman: without her, man is nothing" the same words as "Woman without her man is nothing" mean the opposite. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/12/) — In texting, a full stop after a short word can look cold or annoyed, especially to younger people; one study found texts ending with a full stop seemed less friendly. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/13/) — In formal writing one exclamation mark is enough, and only when it's really needed. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/14/) — A question mark or exclamation mark already ends a sentence, so no full stop goes after it. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/15/) — "My brother who lives in Leeds is a doctor" (no commas) picks out one of several brothers; "My brother, who lives in Leeds, is a doctor" (commas) just adds a fact about your only brother. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/16/) — Signs need punctuation too: "Coffee and cake £3.50. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/17/) — A dash marks a sudden break or adds extra information, like brackets; a hyphen is shorter and joins words, as in well-known. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/18/) — In the North East of England "pet" is a friendly word, like dear or love. - ← previous: [Silent letters and the mystery of -ough](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/) - next →: [The apostrophe war](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/15-the-apostrophe-war/) - ↑ back to [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/)