User:TopAce/PunctuationGuide

More often than not, I notice that Wookieepedians make punctuation mistakes, some of them are common ones, some of them derive from differences between variants/dialects of English, and a few of them are the most extreme ones. Fortunately, I encounter common punctuation mistakes more often than serious ones.

This little guide is written for the simple goal to provide its readers a rough outline of English punctuation, mentioning sporadic differences between American and British English. I will indicate when the two dialects differ. Please note that non-officially, Wookieepedia is written in American English.

Spelling

 * This section covers the most essential spelling instructions for the Star Wars universe and English. For a more complete and detailed list, please see List of common misspellings

Since Star Wars, a science fiction by nature, can come up with the most impossible and inpronouncable names, learning the correct list of letters, especially vowels is hard task, even for those who read a lot of Star Wars material. As mentioned above, this page will deal with the most common spelling mistakes, highlighting them from the much longer list. This list only gives you the correct spelling, unlike the complete and offical Wookieepedia common misspellings list.

Star Wars misspellings

 * Anakin Skywalker (it is more often misspelled than any other names in Star Wars, most likely because pronunciation and correct spelling differ a bit.)
 * General Grievous (notice the verb "grief" in his name.
 * Sidious
 * Plagueis (notice the word plague in his name. Put the third person singular be after his name and merge the two words plague is into plagueis and capitalize.
 * Obi-Wan Kenobi, not Obi-wan Kenobi. Separating with a hyphen makes two separate words. The same rule is true for all names which have a hyphen in them. Most popular names are Qui-Gon Jinn, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Pablo-Jill or Echuu Shen-Jon.
 * For some more info on hyphen, see the punctuation part.


 * Lightsaber Often spelled as lightsabre, light sabre or light saber. This word is a compound, the ending being -er. I write an entire section about it in its article. Most of it was removed by way-too-smart members and thereby contains flaws and is incomplete. The spelling "lightsaber" is not only used for consistency, but it IS the only correct way of spelling the word, as it is an entirely new word created in the United States during filming. The same happened in the case of the word program. In British English, the spelling programme is correct in all senses of the word but in its computer-related sense, it must be program under any circumstances, no matter what dialect we are speaking about.

Other typical spelling mistakes

 * Separatists (if you know how to spell the verb to separate, all you need to learn is that the -ist suffix removes the last e.

The word "pronounce" and its variants
Many mistake the spelling of the word pronunciation to pronounciation. The sooner version is the correct one. All other words that are the variants of the verb pronounce must have the o before the u and after the n. Such words are: pronouncement, pronounces, or pronounced as.

Most important British and American spelling differences

 * For more details, see ''the wikipedia article dedicated to all the differences

I am going to list some common examples that I most often correct on Wookieepedia. The British English version is first and the American version is after the arrow.


 * favour, colour, behaviour --> favor, color, behavior
 * grey --> gray
 * armour --> armor (same category as #1, but putting it in a separate place to highlight it).
 * travelled, travelling --> traveled, traveling
 * metre, centre --> meter, center
 * organise, analyse --> organize, analyze

Punctuation
I found time to spelling, but here comes the main purpose of making this page. Hope it will be useful.

The possessive S
This kind of mistake is the main reason I wrote an entire article about punctuation. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most common punctuation mistake in the English language. The problem derives from the point when you learn that if a plural form of a noun ends in an s, then you only need to put an apostrophe after it to reach the possessive form. It is easily to memorize, but most teachers do not call your attention to singular nouns ending in an s. When you have a singular noun ending in an -s, you must use the apostrophe + s to get its possessive form. This means that names like Sidious, Grievous, or Plagueis becomes Sidious's, Grievous's, or Plagueis's.


 * Please also note that some, however, not many mistake the apostrophe + s to the simple plural form of any countable nouns, making phrases such as two cup's of tea or stormtrooper's shoot inaccurately.

Commas
I am only going to point out a number of punctuation mistakes I often encounter or simply find handy to mention.

Enumeration

 * The following is going to cover punctuation that differs in British and American English.

In enumerative phrases, you have elements, more usually single words, separated with commas. In British English, you get a list of elements, each separated with commas, but the hyphen behind the "and" misses.
 * We bought some milk, bread, beer and bacon.

This does not work in such a way in American English, where the comma must be put behind the "and":
 * We bought some milk, bread, beer, and bacon.

In both sentences, the "and" could be changed to "or", which does not make any changes in punctuation.

However
You have to surround "however" with commas, putting a comma before and after it if the however is in the comparison sense.


 * Palpatine, however, wished to seduce Skywalker to replace his father

This is the most common use of however, but there are other cases in which however does not require a comma.


 * Followed by an adjective, in the sense of putting stress on the adjective.
 * However hard you are trying it, you'll fail
 * However fast your speeder is, you're not going to win the race
 * Surprised question (chiefly British English)
 * However did you manage to convince him?
 * However as a conjuction (more common in British English)
 * However you look at it, it's still a mess

Hyphen
There is a separate page for using the n dash (–) and the m dash (&mdash;). This section covers something else.

You must use a hyphen between two words if the two words together form an adjectival structure. So the six hundred meter long warship must be written as the six hundred meter-long warship. Beware that the sentence the Dreadnaught was six hundred meters long is incorrect, because the meters long is not an adjective here.

Note that meter is US spelling for metre.

Some other examples are Jedi-led, warn-torn, fully-fledged, wedge-shaped, and red-haired.

Note that in the above examples, the second words are always in the past participle form (what many ESL students know as the "third form" of a verb).

Quotations
Not much to be said here, the use of quotation marks is often liberate, especially in the case of different media. Put all the punctuation differences between American and British English and you will end up with a complete mess.

For consistency, American English uses double quotation marks (" ") instead of the British single (' ') quotation marks. Note that (' ') are not strictly limited to British English in general, only in direct quotations.

Direct quotations

 *  'And now, young Skywalker, you will die' , said Palpatine. (British English)

However, in Wookieepedia, the double quotation marks should be used.


 *  "And now, young Skywalker, you will die,"  said Palpatine. (American English)

Also note the position of the comma. In quotations, placing the punctuation marks is often liberate. Putting the punctuation mark outside the quotation mark is chiefly British English, putting it inside is more common in the US. However, it differs. For consistency, I suggest people use punctuation marks inside the quotation, for simplicity and consistency reasons.

Incomplete quotes
If you want to take out only different parts of a long quotation, you do not have to quote the entire quotation, boldening or underlining the parts that are important. Instead, remove the unnecessary parts and insert a "[...]" instead of it. This is only an issue if the part you remove if between the two parts you need. At Wookieepedia, we have Declaration of a New Order with the complete text of Palpatine's speech. However, if you wish to highlight what is actually heard in the movie, you should use the "[...]":


 * "The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated. [...] In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society."

Capitalization
Fortunately, capitalization is more consistent than other areas of punctuation. You must always capitalize:


 * Proper nouns
 * Names (Anakin, Skywalker, Solo, Chewbacca)
 * Organization names (Jedi Order, Jedi Council, Galactic Empire, Alliance to Restore the New Republic). note that prepositions and articles are not capitalized
 * Species names (Trandoshan, Rodian, Wookiee, Aqualish)
 * Geographical names (Dune Sea, Beggar's Canyon)
 * Planets, sectors, asteroid field, comet names
 * Jedi and Sith (metonymically used to refer to "a member of the Jedi Order" or the "member of the Sith Order," respectively).
 * Ranks and titles (Count, Padawan, Master, Chancellor, Captain, Commander)
 * Notable event names (Battle of Yavin, Great Schism, Blockade of Kashyyyk, Padawan Massacres of Taris)
 * Titles (the Duel on Mustafar article is a good one, Darth Sidious: Autobiography of an Old Sith Lord Who Seduced a Man Named Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side of the Force) Please note that the sooner example is out-of-universe and the latter example does not exist, it only serves as an example. Note that prepositions and articles are not capitalized.

Italics
Often used to put stress on words within articles.


 * I am not selling death sticks to you.

Ship class names should be in italics. Observe the followings: Ship names should always be capitalized: Out-of-universe titles: Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Dark Forces
 * The Interdictor-class Cruiser dropped us out of hyperspace
 * The SSD Executor was destroyed at the Battle of Endor
 * Raven's Claw was one of Kyle Katarn's ships.