Serious question: I don't know how to use punctuation marks

Yeah, its called the second grade.

>>9853669
Not where I'm from it isn't, faggot. Nevertheless, help me the fuck out, man.

>>9853661
Have you tried downloading Grammarly? It's basically a chrome extension that goes full nazi on you, but doesn't actually tell you how to use the marks themselves. There are other sites out there, something about a gorilla I seem to remember...

>>9853677
No, I don't want to use that. I know of it, but again, it doesn't help you. In fact, it would go out of fucking business if it taught you how to use them properly, wouldn't it?

It wants to keep you dumb, because that is how they make money.

Furthermore, I write a lot using pen and paper and rarely use the computer so it wouldn't be worth it.

Read a lot; it's the only way.
Read a lot--it's the only way.
Read a lot. (It's the only way.)
Reading a lot: it's the only way.
Read a lot, dog. It's the only way.

>>9853687
Found what I was referring to
http://www.chompchomp.com/
Haven't used it in years, but I remember my teachers always recommending it.

>>9853661
Anon, just google the wikipage for each of them and train them into your stupid brain.
Also: Read more, it helps.

I learnded it after moving to another country through writting down each definition and usage as well as a couple examples and just memorized it. After that my granny just made me write down dictaded sentances which I had to write with punctation.

You can learn in in a week.

>>9853661
>>9853697
Example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon#Usage

>>9853692
Yes, but often times I think I'm doing it wrong.
I need specific examples of each.
For example:

>Anon went to the shop and heard someone shout, "You're stupid, you can't even into English, pleb".
Do I put a comma after pleb? Do I put the period on the outside of the quotation mark? Do I put a ' after pleb? Do I start a new line after the quotation mark?

>>9853697
Yeah, I've done this too, believe me, It's almost like my brain refuses to learn. I blame my fucking poor schooling.
I've read the wiki's, read other sites that give you a breakdown, etc, but still, I'm not 100 percent on it. I'm the same with Math, I can do complex equations and whatever else, but I can't even into basic division. It's almost like the bad schooling/lack of clarification at a young age has fucked me up and it's just a blank.

>>9853719
So what so hard to remember that when you quote someone you use : and start wirth " and end it with " .

Example:
Anon is a lazy fuck when he says: "I blame my fucking poor schooling."

You will have to actually sit down and write it down on paper (that way you can better remembe it). Go full Bart Simpson and write so long till your hand will overwrite your lazy brain. It's not a meme punsihment, it actually works.

You're not special, if anything, you're especially lazy.

>>9853661
>-- (the dash)
There are three different types of dashes that vary in length: dash -, en dash –, and em dash —. The dash is also known as a hyphen, and is typically only ever used to combine words (e.g. self-sufficient), which we call hyphenated words, or to mark a continuation on the next line in justified paragraphs.

The en dash is slightly longer and is used to indicate a range between two statements, most usually numbers (e.g. 10–20 meaning "ten to twenty" or "ten through twenty"). The reason an en dash is used instead of an ordinary hyphen is that the hyphen doubles as the minus symbol so if used with numbers could be mistaken for a mathematical expression. Keyboards don't really have a way to produce en dashes easily, but most word processors will automatically insert them when you do number ranges.

The em dash is mostly used to create breaks within a sentence, however it doesn't really have a set usage. It can be used to replace commas, colons, semicolons, or parentheses—which is my preferred usage—though like the the en dash it doesn't have a set key on the keyboard and word processors will usually fill it in for you.

Both en and em dashes should not have spaces between themselves and the characters they separate, which you will note in my examples.

>>9853719
>Anon went to the shop and heard someone shout, "You're stupid, you can't even into English, pleb".

You're actually not too far off.

>Anon went to the shop and heard someone shout. "You're stupid, you can't even into English, pleb," they said.

>>9853737
Are you sure you're correct? I'm not

>>9853692
>Read a lot. (It's the only way.)
Read a lot (It´s the only way).

>>9853661
>; (rarely use this because I don't know if I should)
The semicolon is essentially a conjunction punctuation. Which is fun to say, but might not be clear what it means. Essentially it is similar to an "and" or "but" or other word that joins two independent clauses together to make a compound sentence. This is the key part to understanding semicolons: the writing on both sides has to make sense independently. If you can't replace a semicolon with a period or an "and" then it probably shouldn't be used.

>>9853751
Well, I suppose you could argue that it is up to the writer (assuming this is fiction). You could put a colon between "heard someone shout" and the dialogue, replacing the period. You could start a new paragraph (though this one in odd, as it breaks up a single though into two separate paragraphs.)

In that regard, the original could be argued to be correct. In fiction, the author had the final say. Just look at "The Road" for proof.

Buy a copy of "The Elements of Style"

It is a wonderful little book that every writer should own, and it's cheap to boot.

>>9853661
>"" (I don't know when to use quotation marks, and how they should correspond to a new line, or whether I put the period . after or before the second " mark)
I'm wondering if you even went through grade school at this point.
>how they should correspond to a new line
The same way as anything else? Quotes do not really have special rules, they still obey written English conventions. If you break for a new paragraph you indent the first line.
>whether I put the period . after or before the second " mark
Americans always put the period inside the quotes, but Brits do both. Better to just put it on the inside by default if you live in America.

>>9853661
>' ' (I don't know what the fuck these are even for)
Single quotes are used to show a quotation within a quotation to avoid confusion. "I was talking to Mary and she told me, 'you should bring an umbrella because it might rain,' but there isn't a cloud in the sky!" Personally I think nested quotes are gaudy and I try to avoid them if possible.

>>9853661
>: (I know a little, but not confident enough to use it knowing it's 100 percent correct)
Colons have a lot of neat uses, but the simplest and most common way they are used is to start lists. Always put them after independent clauses though. Many people ignore that part, but technically a colon can only go after a complete sentence.

>>9853661
>, (I often put commas all over the place because that's how I speak, with spaces etc, not sure if it's correct usage)
Comma usage gets complicated because they overlap with lots of other punctuation, and honestly I'm not too good at using them myself. If I'm worried that I'm overusing commas I just switch to writing without them and then manually add them in afterward if I think they are needed.

>>9853661
>() (not sure what the fuck brackets are for either.)
Parentheses are used to embed statements into sentences that can be skipped over without the sentence losing any meaning. These statements do not need to be wrapped in parentheses, you can use commas or em dashes if you want, but they are still known as "parenthetical statements" regardless of what punctuation you use. In case you weren't paying attention, that statement I made in the middle of the last sentence was parenthetical using commas, I could have written as:
>These statements do not need to be wrapped in parentheses (you can use commas or em dashes if you want), but they are still known as "parenthetical statements" regardless of what punctuation you use.

>>9853892
So you could have also said:
>"These statements do not need to be wrapped in parentheses---you can use commas or em dashes if you want)---but they are still known as "parenthetical statements" regardless of what punctuation you use.

--- is for emdash since I don't know how to type it

>>9853661
>' (apostrophe's and single quotation marks (') I don't have a clue)
This is super basic grammar dude. Apostrophes are used mainly in contractions and for possessive forms of words and their function can be simply described as standing in for one or more letters. Contractions like "couldn't" or "isn't" are combinations of two words that have letters removed to make them easier to pronounce, in this case the apostrophe is "standing in" for a vowel: couldnot --> couldn't and isnot --> isn't. Similarly, you can use apostrophes at the end of words to show that they have been cut short (as in fightin' to show it's missing the final g, this is often used to transcribe slang and vernacular to make it look similar to how it sounds spoken aloud).

The other usage is to make possessive forms of words, which is a little different because this usage doesn't really have any bearing on pronunciation of words and is just for visual clarity. "Johns" is a name, while John's indicates something that belongs to somebody named John. So a lunch box with "John's Lunch" would be long to John and not Johns. The exception is with its vs it's. Which is confusing, but this is a pet peeve of many people. It's is a contraction, not an ownership form. It's stands for "it is". Its is the possessive. A good way to remember this is to simply mentally replace any "its" you write with "it is" and see if it makes sense or not. If it does, then put an apostrophe in there.

>>9853920
Em dashes aren't ordinary punctuation so they don't have a simple key binding on ordinary keyboards, which only have hyphens But if you typing in MS Word or Libre Office and used a hyphen where an en dash or em dash would go, the program would automatically insert the appropriate dash for you. Very handy.

>>9853949
Oh yeah, I knew all of that anyway, I'm more just trying to clarify everything so I know for certain I'm not making any mistakes.

>>9853957
Yes, but I don't want to rely on a word processor. I want to know it so that I can always know it, and never have to learn it again, or doubt myself when using it. Similar to when you first pronounce a word you've just learnt, I don't want that lingering doubt to be there. I've found I always have that when writing something, not sure whether or not I've used proper grammar.

Is the above grammatically correct?