I’ve removed the commas, colons and semicolons from the following sentences. See if you can correctly put them back. One missing punctuation mark is common to all of them–the semicolon. Can you use it properly? Give it a try and send your revisions to me–either as a comment in the blog OR by email to jody@brunerbiz.com. In next month’s newsletter, I’ll post the correctly punctuated sentences and publish a list of everyone who gets it right.

1.  Happiness isn’t something you experience it’s something you remember. –Oscar Levant

2.  I never voted for anyone I always voted against. –W.C. Fields

3.  It is forbidden to kill therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. –Voltaire

4.  To say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism had we never sinned we should have had no conscience. –Thomas Carlyle

5.  Genius consists in a carefully trained highly polished ability a thoughtfully educated unbiased good taste and a willingness to engage in and a persistence to do hard work. –Anonymous

6.  First prize was given to Jane Smervitz Peoria Illinois second prize to Sam Frimpson Duluth Minnesota third prize to Amber Ambleton Oxnard California.

7.  This project appears to be overwhelming nevertheless it can be done.

8.  The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. –Bertrand Russell

9.  There were other factors too the deadly tedium of small-town life where any change was a relief the nature of current Protestant theology rooted in Fundamentalism and hot with bigotry and not least a native American moralistic blood lust that is half historical determinism and half Freud. –Robert Coughlan

10.  The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive instead of endeavouring to amuse mankind with the minute neatness of his imitations he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas instead of seeking praise by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator he must strive for fame by captivating the imagination. –Sir Joshua Reynolds

This quiz is setting up our next newsletter, where Christine and I will be waging the battle of the semicolon. I’ll be sharing all the things I hate about it, and she’ll be expressing her misguided affection for it. Stay tuned.

Print Friendly