Although direct questions on application of punctuation in CAT are few and far between, it is still useful to know some of the rules pertaining to usage of punctuation. Here’s a quick little primer:
- Comma
One of the main uses of the comma is to separate words/word groups in a series of 3 or more items.
e.g. At the Udupi restaurant, we had steaming hot idlis, dosas and upma.
Sometimes, a comma, known as the Oxford comma, is added after dosas . However, it is not necessary to include the Oxford comma unless the appropriate meaning is not conveyed without using it.
e.g. The famous opticians in Mumbai are Turakhia, Lawrence and Mayo, and GKB.
The use of the Oxford Comma after Mayo clearly indicates that ‘Lawrence and Mayo’ is a single entity and not 2 separate entities.
Commas are also used to indicate additional information. Here is an example:
e.g. This house, which is painted red, is the best in the village.
Commas are also used when 2 independent sentences are joined using conjunctions such as and, or, but, etc.
e.g. The boys wanted to stay up until midnight, but they grew tired and fell asleep.
- Semi-colon
A semi-colon is used to connect 2 independent clauses. Hence, the 2 sentences linked by a semi-colon must make sense when used stand alone. Another important rule is that the 2 sentences should be closely related in meaning.
e.g. Learning is a continuous process; one can continue to learn even after graduation.
Here the 2 sentences are related to each other in meaning. Each sentence is also able to stand alone. Hence, the usage of semi-colon in this sentence is correct.
Take a look at this sentence: People who don’t use punctuation think they are fancy; but they are wrong.
A semi-colon cannot come before ‘but’ or ‘and’ and hence the use of the semi-colon in this sentence is wrong. Instead, as mentioned previously, a comma should be used.
- Colon
The colon is usually used before a list.
e.g. The Indian Flag has 3 main colours: saffron, white and green.
The important thing to note is that the part of the sentence before the colon must stand alone. Here, the part of the sentence before the colon, ‘The Indian Flag has 3 main colours’, is grammatically correct on its own. Hence, the usage of colon in this example is correct.
Another use of the colon is when the second sentence expands on the first sentence. Here is an example:
e.g. He got what he worked for: a promotion.
- Dash
A dash is used to introduce an interrupting thought in a sentence. Here is an example.
e.g. Upon discovering the grammatical errors – all 60 of them – the publisher immediately recalled the books.
To make sure that a sentence using a dash is grammatically correct, simply remove the words in between the dashes and check if the sentence makes sense. In the above sentence, this will be ‘Upon discovering the grammatical errors, the publisher immediately recalled the books’, which is grammatically correct.
