Back to: Primary six English notes
What are punctuations. Lets first begin with capital letters For example
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv
Ww Xx Yy Zz.
USES OF CAPITAL LETTERS
Beginning of sentences e.g. The table was cleaned.To start proper nouns for example Mukasa, Kampala, August, December, Tanzania, Friday, Mt. Rwenzori, Doctor, Teacher, Easter, Christmas.Mr. Mukasa came from Mbarara on Sunday.
When writing I as a pronoun in any position of a sentence. e.g. Mary and I passed the exams very well. I was told to come very early in the morning.
To introduce a direct speech sentence e.g. I said, “I shall come tomorrow”,“The books were bought yesterday.” said the teacher.
When writing pronouns referring to God. for example Everything was created by God and He decided all of them to be in Hs image.
The names of Almighty God should be written beginning with capital letters and pronouns referring to God.
for example Jesus Christ, Allah, God the Almighty, Jehovah, the messiah.
Capital letters are used for peoples’ initials e.g Y.K. Museveni, I.K Musaazi, A.M,Obote.
It is used for titles of books. e.g. The Nile English Course.
It is used for titles of plays. e.g That’s Life Mwattu.
When writing newspapers e.g. The New Vision, The Monitor.
When writing titles of songs e.g. The Uganda National Anthem.
When writing titles of poems and every line of poetry e.g. The stubborn child.When writing titles before the proper noun e.g.Princess Diana, Omukama Iguru, Kabaka Mwanga
When writing names of streets and avenues for examplen Luwum street,Kamahi Avenue
FULL STOP (.)
Uses of a full stop
It is used at the end of every negative and affirmative sentence or
statement. e.g. My father has gone to town.
It is used when writing initials of people e.g. J.B. Walusimbi’s.
When writing abbreviations e.g. A.D, Maj. , N.B
It is used in writing internet and e- mail addresses
QUESTION MARK (?)
It is used at the end of an interrogative statement e.g. where are you?
It is used for rhetoric questions. These are questions that have obvious
answers of either yes or no. For example Can you match God’s Glory? Definitely No.
Isn’t water necessary for life? Yes of course.
Question marks are also used after question tags. She is clever. Isn’t she?
EXCLAMATION MARK (!) (Uses of How and What)
It is used after an exclamatory sentence e.g. what a fat girl Jane is!
It is used with exclamatory words e.g. Oh! Hullo! Alas! Ah!
APOSTROPHE (‘)
It is used to show possession in nouns for example That is Mugisha’s pen.
It is used to show contractions. For example They do not know him.
She’d taken a soda when I came in
It is used to form plurals of letters and figures e.g. Life was very hard during the 1980’s, 3’s, , 5’s, T’s and P’s
COMMA (,)
A Comma is used in question tags, to separate the main statement from
a question tag. e.g. We are going home today, aren’t we?
A comma is used in speeches to separate the speech tag from the words of the speaker. e.g. She asked, “ Where have you put the money?”
It is used to separate a relative clause form the main clause e.g. The animal, which was being chased by the whole village was killed.
Kampala, the city of seven hills, is located in the southern part of Uganda.
A comma is used addresses, salutations and subscriptions in letter writing. e.g Dear Jane, Yours faithfully, Yours sincerely,
It is used when writing figures with more than three digits e.g. 1,555,555, 10,000, 24,000
It is used to separate some words and phrases e.g. nevertheless, however, therefore, in fact, of course, for instance, on the other hand, besides, on the contrary.
A comma is used to separate words written in series e.g. Benz is a car which is small, comfortable, black and from Germany.
It is used to separate items in a list e.g. orange, mango, lemon.
It is used in a sentence which begins with an adverbial clause.
SEMI COLON (;)
It is used to separate titles, names and figures which are just listed. It can also work in place of a comma
e.g. Titles: the following people are useful to the nation: the president; the ministers; the teachers; the nurses. Figures 30,000; 60,000; 150,000.
It can be used if you want to avoid using the words “and” and “but” For example she went and looked for the lost pen; she didn’t find it.
COLON (: )
It is used before an introduction of long lists of series of things for example There are many things sold in Owino market: old clothes, food, shoes, socks, fruits, bags etc
A colon is used to show ratios for example the ratio of men to women is 1:6 The ratio of hens to ducks and turkeys is 4:6:8
It is used to identify particular speeches of individuals in a written conversation or in a play e.g. John: Hurry up lest I leave you. Or Asio: You can go because I may delay you.
QUOTATION MARKS (“ “)
(Shaping of opening and closing quotation marks).These are also called inverted commas.
They are used to enclose the actual words said by somebody in direct speech. for example The teacher said, “You are going to learn about punctuation marks.”
They are used when one wants to be specific with certain names. E.g. The Newspaper of today “The New Vision” has news about Kony rebels.
HYPHEN (-)
It is used to separate a prefix ending in a vowel form a word beginning with the same vowel. E.g. co-operation, re- election, pre- eminent.
It is used between two numbers or dates to include between the mentioned items. E.g. pages 100 -500
Years 1980 – 1989
It is used to form a compound form a prefix e.g. anti- Uganda, Pre- colonial
It is used for joining words to form a compound word from two or more other words. E.g. Tea pot Call – box, Time – table
It is used to form a compound from two other words that are separated by a preposition e.g. son – in – law Princess – of – Africa, Pearl – of – Africa
It is used when writing out compound numbers e.g. Forty- night, Thirty –
six.