Our best punctuation mark is dying out; people need to learn how to use it - IN FOCUS: The poor, misunderstood semicolon is under threat. Helen Coffey laments its decline and makes the case for re ...

You’ve probably heard the joke about the panda who “eats, shoots and leaves” versus one who “eats shoots and leaves.” One ...

Then we have emojis – which are, of course, the most evolved punctuation marks of all. An emotional powerhouse, the emoji has the incredible ability to lend mood to otherwise moodless phrasing.

I’m talking about the poor, misunderstood semicolon. Yes, that most elegant of punctuation marks – sitting elusively somewhere between an en-dash and a colon – is officially under threat.

Various respected writers, including Kurt Vonnegut, Edgar Allan Poe, Gertrude Stein and Cormac McCarthy, have publicly denounced my favourite punctuation mark as “showy”, “unnecessary”, “idiocy”, and ...