Diacritical Marks

Diacritcal marks or diacritics are linguistic marks (or glyphs) placed above or below a letter. Diacritics – often called accents – can indicate or change a letter’s sound – though not all diacritical marks alter pronunciation.

One of the most basic English diacritics, the macron – a single bar (ā) – indicates a long vowel. In most dialects of American English, long vowels are pronounced like each letter’s name, like in cake, Pete, mice, grove, and rule. Conversely, the breve – shaped like the bottom half of a circle (ă) – marks a short vowel, like in cat, bet, fit, rot, and nut. Although these diacritics help with pronunciation, they don’t appear in the actual word.

Colons

Lace up your grammar gloves, step into the ring, and brace yourself for Punctuation, Round II. With the fearsome semicolon now a familiar friend, we move on to the slightly better understood (but still somewhat confusing) colon.

Colons have several uses, but all of them follow a basic rule: a colon follows an independent clause (or a full, stand-alone sentence) to provide an example or additional, needed information. Consider that last sentence. In the initial independent clause, I said there was a “basic rule”; after the colon, I explained what that basic rule was.

Latin Phrases

If Latin words and phrases have always seemed like Greek, then let today’s learnalittle post be an addendum (something added or to be added) to your personal education.

For starters, let’s consider the case of id est (that is; abbreviated i.e.). The abbreviation i.e. is used to give clarification about the statement in casu (meaning: in this case), i.e. it explains an idea in another way to make it more clear. This contrasts with exempli gratia (meaning: for example), which is used to provide specific examples of a category, e.g. primary colors, odd numbers, etc. (et cetera: and the rest; used to imply or replace additional items in a list). Ergo (therefore), i.e. is used to introduce a clarification, while e.g. introduces a specific example. Interchangeable use of these two phrases is somewhat status quo (the current state of things; literally the state in which), but is often incorrect.

Semicolon

Have you ever worried that sloppy syntax would make you the laughing stock of your local grammar rodeo? Do you succumb to fearful suspicion at the mere mention of semicolons? Then send a prayer of thanksgiving to the Grammar Gods for Punctuation, Part I: the semicolon.

Let’s hit the ground running with the most misunderstood and intentionally avoided squiggle in all of the English language: the semicolon. And yes, I just used a colon to introduce a semicolon. Get over it.