WWW:Punctuation

In this ever-changing world, punctuation is set of unchanging rules that reflect upon the style and tone of the writer, and is therefore the necessity to effectively present speech in a clear and organized manner. The primary role of punctuation in the English language (and many other languages) is to give speech clarity, making it comprehendible for the readers. The error in punctuation, however, creates confusion and chaos within the text. Twitter, for example, has created  "dystopian images of...weird alpha-numerical hybrid codes (Gr8 C u l8r...)." (Source A). Not only do these stray from traditional formats in writing, but they fail to clearly give readers a message. In fact, they may give off two separate interpretations, depending on the reader's viewpoint. The image rhetoric, respectively, shows readers the importance of Oxford commas by presenting two phrases to the readers: "strippers, jfk, and stalin" and "strippers, jfk and stalin." (Image Source). While the phrases that originate from the erroneous punctuation may be enjoyable, it certainly cannot fulfill it's role in correctly communicating to the readers. The rules of punctuation must continue to serve their purposes in order to sustain the order in newly developing technologies. If, on the other hand, punctuation were to change with the world, it would require change often, and will not be able to be integrated fast enough and ultimately become a jumble of confusion. Additionally, many have claimed that erroneous punctuation enhance writer's style and expression by giving them a "trail of possibilities."(Source B) This can be true to some extent, but expression and style both cannot hold any value when it is not understandable. Instead, punctuation should be considered even further important for it's ability to convey style and tone. Each punctuation have their own connotations. Dashes give an "informal and essentially playful" tone, and semicolons are able to tell readers that "there is still some more...to be added" like "[grocery] bags" (Source D, E). Yet, these two punctuation marks are both used to mark pauses in sentences. It is evident that with emergence of new technologies, punctuation is becoming more and more crucial to maintain order in speech than before, and also to express the writer's tone and style. *WWW stands for Writing With Warren and indicates that the blog post is much more formal compared to a regular blog post.