Q: Why are the rules of punctuation so strict? When is it appropriate to us a comma? When should one use a comma as opposed to a semicolon, or an em-dash, or parentheses? What is the difference between a semicolon and an em-dash, anyway? What is an em-dash, and how did it happen?

A: The Language Ninja orders you to calm down. Although you seem slightly desperate to have all the answers immediately, they will have to be addressed in a series of posts. Try not to allow your head to explode.

Those who have read previous posts will already know that the Ninja takes a very permissive attitude regarding the rules of grammar and style. Some have said too permissive, but their necks have since met the business end of the Ninja’s katana, so they don’t really say that (or anything) any more.

Of course, we regard proper punctuation as the linchpin of solid writing. The true meaning of many a sentence would be impossible to decipher without it.

Blushing Jessie took off her dress lovely but tight ripped during the frenzied mambo

Now, note the difference when punctuation is added.

Blushing, Jessie took off; her dress – lovely but tight – ripped during the frenzied mambo.

These are two wholly different micro stories. To be fair, the addition of punctuation might have made the narrative less interesting to some readers.

And yet… there’s correct punctuation, and there’s Correct Punctuation. Like all of elements of language and grammar, the difference between a semicolon and a dash is just something humankind collectively made up, and continues to adjust and re-invent. Unlike chemistry or biology, it isn’t something that already exists fully formed, but whose secrets we must systematically uncover via constant study and experimentation. We periodically invent a series of rules, force everyone to adhere to them for a few decades, reimagine and reinterpret the rules, and go through the whole adjustment period again. In the interim, we regard anyone who either fails to understand or recognize those (oftentimes) arbitrary rules as a total moron. As the Corner Boys from the TV series The Wire would say, “That’s how we do.”

But life without punctuation and its attendant rules was no picnic. Punctuation originated sometime about 300 B.C. in Greece, when a Greek academic (Aristophanes, to be specific) decided he had just about a gosh-darned ’nuff of trying to parse through nearly indecipherable scrolls of text. You see, written ancient languages were a concentrated mass of lettering, completely unbroken by punctuation marks, upper or lower cases, or even spaces between words. So, if you tried to read an ancient document, you’d be confronted with:

ARIADNESTROKEDALEXIOSRIPPLINGBICEPTENDERLYASPOMEGRANATEJUICEDROOLEDFROMHEREAGERLIPSSHEMURMURED

YOUMIGHTNOTBEZEUSBUTICANSTILLSEEYOURLIGHTNINGBOLT

Now, when you think of all the mental dexterity, effort, and strain required to read a single sentence, it isn’t really surprising that the ancient Greeks were total geniuses. If Archimedes had lived another six months, they probably would have had WiFi.

Because punctuation was born just to give readers’ poor eyes a break, the distinction between a semicolon and a dash today could seem a bit ridiculous. You might be tempted to fling punctuation at a sentence the way Jackson Pollock flung paint at a canvas, but the results generally aren’t Chicago Manual of Style-approved. So, in the interest of making the rules comprehensible, the Ninja will attempt to explain usage in a wholly un-comprehensive yet mildly amusing way. The specific marks of punctuation (comma, semicolon, dash, and parentheses) will be addressed in subsequent, equally flimsy posts.

You’re welcome!

Holly Troupe is a professional web content writer and an amateur everything else. She spends her days writing, eating, and looking for ways to incorporate the term “perfidy” into the urban vernacular.