“…for the rest of us, who like to thrill readers with the occasional hairpin, conjunction-less turn from one independent clauses into another, they come very much in handy.”

“They’re like em dashes — pieces of flair no writer should overuse, but which he should never be expected to live without.”

Max Lindenman at The Anchoress – The New Punctuation: A Menace to Our Way of Life

It’s true: I enjoy my punctuation. I do not enjoy being accused of over-punctuation, even though that’s also usually true.

I enjoy, in particular: using punctuation correctly; arguing vehemently when someone suggests I’m not; placing my periods and commas securely inside the quote marks; placing them just as securely outside the parentheses.

But…what about ellipses? The Anchoress doesn’t care about ellipses?

If words are the flesh – and they are – punctuation is the bones. You don’t want to have a gooey mass of directionless flesh just lying around making people sick, do you?