Запятые в английском языке. Часть 2 | English Punctuation Rules

Полезная справка по пунктуации в английском языке. Опускаю простейшие правила по постановке заглавных букв, точек, восклицательных и вопросительных знаков.
Лично для меня довольно сложная тема.
Материал на английском языке.

Punctuation: colons (:) and semi-colons (;)

• We use colons to introduce lists:

There are three main reasons for the success of the government: economic, social and political.

• We also use colons to indicate a subtitle or to indicate a subdivision of a topic:

Life in Provence: A Personal View

• We often use colons to introduce direct speech:

Then he said: ‘I really cannot help you in any way.’

• We commonly use a colon between sentences when the second sentence explains or justifies the first sentence:

Try to keep your flat clean and tidy: it will sell more easily.

• We use semi-colons instead of full stops to separate two main clauses. In such cases, the clauses are related in meaning but are separated grammatically:

Spanish is spoken throughout South America; in Brazil the main language is Portuguese.

• Semi-colons are not commonly used in contemporary English. Full stops and commas are more common.

А какая тема вам дается сложнее всего?

Punctuation: quotation marks (‘…’ or “…”)

• Quotation marks in English are ‘…’ or “…”. In direct speech, we enclose what is said within a pair of single or double quotation marks, although single quotation marks are becoming more common. Direct speech begins with a capital letter and can be preceded by a comma or a colon:

She said, “Where can we find a nice Indian restaurant?” (or She said: ‘Where can we find a nice Indian restaurant?’)

• We can put the reporting clause in three different positions. Note the position of commas and full stops here:

The fitness trainer said, ‘Don’t try to do too much when you begin.’ (quotation mark after comma introducing speech and after full stop) ‘Don’t try to do too much when you begin,’ the fitness trainer said. (comma before closing quotation mark) ‘Don’t try to do too much,’ the fitness trainer said, ‘when you begin.’ (commas separating the reporting clause)

• When we use direct speech inside direct speech, we use either single quotation marks inside double quotation marks, or double quotation marks inside single quotation marks:

“It was getting really cold,” he said, “and they were saying ‘When can we go back home?’” Jaya said, ‘They were getting really excited and were shouting “Come on!”’.

• We commonly use question marks inside the quotation marks unless the question is part of the reporting clause:

‘Why don’t they know who is responsible?’ they asked. So did they really say ‘We will win every match for the next three weeks’?

• We also use single quotation marks to draw attention to a word. We can use quotation marks in this way when we want to question the exact meaning of the word:

I am very disappointed by his ‘apology’. I don’t think he meant it at all. NEW ‘WAR’ OVER NORTH SEA FISHING PLANS

• We sometimes use quotation marks to refer to the titles of books, newspapers, magazines, films, songs, poems, videos, CDs, etc:

There’s a special report all about it in ‘The Daily Mail’.

• We can use italics instead of quotation marks for these citations:

There’s a special report all about it in The Daily Mail.

• Articles or chapters within books, or titles of short stories, are normally punctuated by single quotation marks:

The longest chapter in the book is the last one called ‘The Future of Africa’.

Punctuation: dashes ( – ) and other punctuation marks

• Dashes are more common in informal writing. They can be used in similar ways to commas or semi-colons. Both single and multiple dashes may be used:

Our teacher – who often gets cross when we’re late – wasn’t cross at all. No one could believe it! Just wanted to thank you for a lovely evening – we really enjoyed it.

• Brackets have a similar function to dashes. They often add extra, non-essential information:

Thriplow (pronounced ‘Triplow’) is a small village in the eastern part of England.

• We use brackets around dates and page numbers in academic writing:

Heaton (1978) gives a convincing explanation of how hurricanes are formed (pages 27–32).

• We often use forward slashes in internet addresses and to indicate and/or in academic references:

You can find the figures you need on www.bbc.co.uk/finance

Binks (1995/1997) has already researched this aspect of Roman history.

Source: dictionary.cambridge.org