CAPITAL LETTERS & PUNCTUATIONS By Ms Choy Li Lee

Capital Letters (A, B, C….)  Example:  The boy’s name is Ali.  We will go to Malacca in March.

Full stop / Period (. )  My name is Tan Li Ying.  He said, “The girl lives in Kuala Lumpur.”

Comma (, )  Mangose, rambutan, papayas and durians are some examples of Malaysian fruit.  When he opened the door, he saw a salesman standing outside, holding a box of washing powder.

Question Mark ( ? )  Do you know the meaning of this word ?  Your birthday was yesterday, wasn’t it ?

Colon ( : )  The canteen sells a variety of food: rice, noodles, cakes and all sorts of titbits.  Can you spell these words: giant, business and calendar ?

Semi-colon ( ; )  Please on hold; my father is coming.  Some oranges are sweet; others are quite sour.

Inverted commas/quotation marks (“ ”)  Mrs Ching said, “I brought this handbag for RM20.”  “What are you doing here ? ” asked the guard.

Inverted commas/quotation marks (“ ”)  “Thank you for helping me,” he replied.  The monitor shouted, “Boys, keep quiet!”  “Don’t touch that wire,” warned the electrician.

Apostrophe (’)  Mr Wong’s son  The elephant’s tail  The ladies’ clothes  The soldiers’ uniforms  Ross’ handbag  Ali and Abu’s parents.

Exclamation Mark (!)  I loved the play!  The monitor shouted, “Boys, keep quiet!”  Help!

Ellipsis (…)  “The sight was awesome...truly amazing,“ he said.  “Let me check…I am sorry, I do not have the book that you wanted,” said the librarian.

Hyphen ( - )  Karen is his ex-girlfriend.  There are fifty-two playing cards in a deck.  He lived to be one hundred twenty-one.

Dash ( -- or — )  An introductory paragraph is a brief paragraph that comes — yes, you guessed it — at the beginning of an essay.  This is the end of our story — or so we thought.