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Ryan gets all concise

Punctuation Madness

Last night I had a dream, I dreamt of a world where grammar had disappeared, a world in which punctuation had gone crazy and the common man could no longer function. I woke up in a cold sweat as the dream played on and on in my head. As vivid as day, I remember the crazy world of grammatical madness I was stuck in.

The dream started with me walking down this quaint little road, a real biscuit tin town. In the distance was a market stall, emitting all kinds of wondrous smells. I do not remember my exact intent in the dream but I'm almost certain I was heading towards the smells. I'm pretty sure that food takes priority for me, even when I'm in a subconscious state.Ìý

Before I could make it to the market stall, I heard a loud scream over my right shoulder. As I turned to see what had created such a noise, I saw - and I kid you not, people - a giant exclamation mark crush an old woman with what can only be described as a loud bang. You see, so much emphasis, so much interjection at a given moment, can kill a person!!!!

Chased by a exclamation mark!

I wasn't sticking around to fight an exclamation mark so I ran. Within five minutes my dream had turned into a nightmare and I was getting chased by some angry punctuation. As I gained ground on the ‘!’, I started to relax a little. He wasn't going to catch me now. In fact come to think of it he was never going to catch me. You’re not very dextrous when you only have a dot to bounce on. I looked back and the exclamation mark I had feared was struggling to tackle a hill that my legs had me well- equipped for.

The missing punctuation

As I scanned the paper I realised it contained not one full stop. Come to think of it, the paper had no punctuation at all, not one marking on the page, just bare letters and pictures. I looked up from the paper and I saw a lady reading a menu in a restaurant window. She was blue in the face and as I approached I saw that the she was just like the old man, suffering from the lack of punctuation in this strange place.Ìý

A lack of full stops meant that sentences went on and on not giving people any chance to breathe many stood gasping for air unsure what to do with themselves in need of a full stop but none to be seen none on the page what do you do...Breathe. On top of this the commas, are going, crazy, people, stuck, in, a, type, of, jitter, because of their overuse.

An exclamation called Mark.

It was while I stood marvelling at a group of people arguing over who owned what because of missing apostrophes that I was dragged inside a house by a timid, very unusual exclamation mark. Far from the one I had witnessed crush a lady not long ago, this little dude told me that the angry punctuation I had ran from was actually his brother and explained just what had caused such an exclamation from a mark.

He had a real squeaky little voice certainly not the deep boom you would expect from such punctuation. He said: "My brother is in a group of about fifty exclamation marks that are sick and tired of their overuse. This whole thing started when the full stops decided they weren't getting enough cash for their job. I guess it's fair play to them, they are certainly the most used punctuation, but I think an all out full stop strike was a bit much.

The timid exclamation explained he was unfortunately called Mark followed by his middle name Steven and his surname Exclamation (M.S.Exclamation). He added that because of his name the other punctuation kids would bully him: "The Hyphens and the Underscore brothers are the worse. One of the Underscores will sneak up behind you and without you noticing a Hyphen will push you so you trip. Everyone finds this hilarious, especially the LOL twins".ÌýÌý

I felt for the little guy but I wanted to know why the full stops striking had caused such chaos: "Once the full stops were gone people began to overuse the exclamation mark, almost replace the full stop with my brother and his pals. This meant a work overload and lack of support because all attention was spent trying to find the now-missing full stops".

Mark explained to me that the only way to bring back the full stops would be to find the Holy Grail of punctuation, an old piece of language lost in history: "Many talk of a group of chosen exclamation marks who guard the secret of this ancient punctuation. It is said that it was banished at the time of Christ because many feared its simple, ease of use would allow all men to write freely without hindrance. The mark was so special it could be inserted at many points in a text to carry numerous meaning, a truly unique punctuation mark. Because the great writers of the time feared the lower classes, they didn't want them to have such easily used punctuation, afraid they would use it to write, so the punctuation mark was banished.Ìý

I was just about to set off into the world with my trusty map ready to find and bring back the use of some old school punctuation, when something woke me up. Laid awake I was a little upset wondering what the new piece of punctuation was and would I have found it? Who knows, I woke up before embarking on the journey. I rolled over to try and re-enter the dream but this time my alarm woke me up a lot earlier than usual. It’s safe to say, diary, that this week punctuality has been on the brain.
ÌýÌý

Chess crazy.

I've developed what many would describe as a worrying addiction to chess. It started a few days ago and is so far unexplainable. I have no idea what caused it. I discovered it on my computer and after getting a friend to explain the intricate beauties of the game I have played it, none stop, ever since.

Ryan plays with his Pawn.

I love it; the strategy, the foresight, everything about it. Even though I have only conquered twice on the board, I keep coming back for more. Since I spoke to friends about my addiction a few closet chess players have emerged, and I now have opponents to compete with online. They are, however, a little less keen on the game than me, so I often find myself competing against a binary opponent.

Although I currently see this stage in my life as a healthy development, I am worried about something that happened to me in the pub the other night. I was standing there almost semi-listening to some drunken rekindling of a tale and I started to think all chess. By ‘think all chess’ I mean the guy stood opposite me was suddenly an enemy and I realised I could only take him if I was a castle while the good-looking Queen at two o' clock would only fall if I was a bishop.

This problem has got worse and has sometimes meant me shifting my entire position in a room to gain a better attacking stance. This can't carry on, but I'm not sure if I can quit, even as I write this I'm pondering whether it’s knight F3 to G5 or queen A4 to D7.Ìý