Honorary president: Judith Butcher Honorary vice-president: David Crystal OBE

Punctuation..? by Thomas Bohm (self-published, 2006): 36pp (pbk), £7.50 (inc. p&p).

Reviewed by Michèle Clarke

This slim volume (and who wants a tome on punctuation anyway?) covers all the punctuation marks from apostrophes to semi colons (or semicolons, depending on where you look in the booklet).

The marks are given two or three pages each with cartoons to illustrate, thus making the text appear easy to understand while giving solid information about all the marks. An example or two are also given to illustrate each point (sorry for pun) made.

Common problems

The most common problems are discussed, such as its v it’s, and also how usage is changing – Bohm mentions that apostrophes are appearing and are acceptable in plurals such as 1970’s (which I still hate) and are disappearing from company names such as Barclays Bank. There are also some lovely additions to the usual run of punctuation marks, such as the pilcrow and the guillemet. Sadly, no index is included, but in such a small volume, this really isn’t a problem.

A nice addition to your shelves, or rather by your computer, this book will take up little space and will have all you should need on a bad punctuation day.