I like to think of punctuation in terms
of driving metaphors and in that case
the period would be the stop sign of the
punctuation world there are three
different types of punctuation that we
consider end punctuation the period is
one of them meaning it ends the sentence
another is the question mark and another
is the exclamation point so I'll give
you an example from my favorite book
it's Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also
Rises the first sentence is Robert Cohen
was once middleweight boxing champion of
Princeton period so right there the
period tells us to stop before we move
on to the next sentence I'll give you
another example of a first line from a
famous book the book Moby Dick begins
call me Ishmael period it's a very
simple sentence it has a subject it has
a verb it has a complete idea and so we
can give it some end punctuation with
the period one more instance when you
might use a period is if you're
abbreviating a word and in that case a
period isn't so much a stop sign as it
is a way to signal that something has
been taken out of the word and we're
using a shorter form so for example you
might call me Miss Patrick we use a
period here same thing with mr. Khan for
example you also might use it in street
names so if you have an address like 100
West spring you'll use a period to
abbreviate the word West and you could
also use a period to abbreviate the word
street so I hope that that gives you
some ideas about how you use a period
typically it's used as an end
punctuation to signal the end of a
sentence and it can also be used when
you're writing an abbreviated word
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