Writing Without Waffle
Help! The punctuation is escaping!
I had a meeting with a client last week, where we discussed the tone of voice required for her two different businesses. We decided her B2B* audience required semi-colons, while her B2C** audience didn’t. It was interesting to be able to sum up the entire brief with just one punctuation mark.
We bemoaned the decline of the semi-colon in general, and went on to talk about other punctuation marks. As you do.
She pointed out that making “double quote” signs in the air is a quick way to annoy people.
I mentioned how the hash symbol has escaped from Twitter. Children in playgrounds say out loud: “Hashtag just kidding”. Presenters on TV make the symbol using the first two fingers on each hand e.g. Davina McCall. (Have you seen her do this?)
It’s a long time since the day I overheard someone on the phone saying: “What the ****’s the hash symbol?” (In his case, I suspect he had the other type of hash on his mind.)