It’s time to put a stop—a full stop!
As a general rule, you use a full stop after a complete sentence that is not an interrogative. Then you must capitalise the first letter of the next word after the full stop. But what is a complete sentence? In short, it has at least one clause which is a subject (unless it is an imperative sentence) and a verb followed by an object if the verb is transitive. For example, ‘I am late’ is a sentence with one clause with no object; ‘I have an appointment’ is a sentence with one clause with an object; and ‘I am late, and I have an appointment’ is still one sentence, but with two clauses. For more on clauses, please look at my post on colons.
It is possible, however, to use a full stop even if the sentence is incomplete; these are called fragmented sentences. You could think of these incomplete sentences as a type of ellipsis (like the three-dot punctuation ellipsis). How could it be an ellipsis? Well, broadly speaking ellipsis at sentence level is leaving out words which the hearer or reader understands to be there from the context—saying these words instead of leaving them out can, at times, seem silly or unnecessary. For example, let’s consider some responses to the question ‘Do you have a spare pen that I could borrow? A natural response to this would be ‘Sure’, ‘Yes, I do’, or ‘Yes, here you go.’ It would be grammatically correct but unnatural to say ‘Yes, I have a spare pen that you could borrow.’ Here the omitted (not included) part is ‘I have a spare pen that you could borrow.’ Now, to connect this idea to using full stops in fragmented sentences (sentences with ellipsis), I could write the answer to such a question in the following ways:
- Sure.
- Of course.
- Yes.
- Yes, I do.
- Here you go.
- No, sorry.
- No.
- Nope.
- I’m afraid I don’t.
All of the above are correct. All of the above are not complete sentences—they’re fragments.
So, a question can create the context, and the answer needn’t include every word of the question because each one is understood already. Here are some more examples:
- What’s your favourite colour? Pink.
- Why have you joined a gym? To lose weight.
- Where are you from? Sydney.
- When do you normally take a break? At 11 o’clock.
- Are you ready to go? Almost.
- Do you think Australia will win the next world cup? Definitely.
What about examples that are not answers to questions? Sure. That’s possible too. Sentence fragments can be used in informal writing within a paragraph. Like short answers where the fragment is not a complete sentence, they still communicate a complete thought. To give you some examples, look at Mr Full Stop’s monologue below:
Mr Full Stop: I’m feeling undervalued. Extremely undervalued. Posts go viral when Ms Comma is mentioned. You think misusing Ms Comma can create misunderstandings. You have no idea what sentences would be like without me. None whatsoever. You wouldn’t know when one thought ends and another begins. You wouldn’t know for sure how words are grouped. Chaos. Complete chaos.
The fragmented sentences are the words in green; moreover, these words that have not been omitted are the anchors which hold the place of the words not written. They represent all the information that has not been mentioned, like when pronouns substitute nouns or noun phrases (e.g. 'she' instead of 'Jane' or 'it' instead of 'the big red house'). Formally, these are called pro-forms. This is another way of looking at the concept of ellipsis. Either way, the words which are not written are implied; they are understood by the reader. Let me flesh them out for you:
Extremely undervalued. = I’m feeling extremely undervalued.
None whatsoever. = You have no idea whatsoever what sentences would be like without me.
Chaos. = It would be chaos.
Complete chaos. = It would be complete chaos.
Using the fleshed-out sentences, instead of the fragmented ones, would have resulted in needless repetition.
Another use of the full stop is to use it after each word in a sentence to create a dramatic effect placing emphasis on each word because it makes the reader pause between each word. Although unconventional, it is effective. You should only do this in informal writing, so don’t do this when taking an exam or applying for a job. Plus, when you do use this strategy, use it sparingly because it could get annoying, and if done too often it will lose the intended effect. Do. Not. Overdo. It.
There are other uses for full stops not covered in this post which I might address in the future. These are their use in some abbreviations (e.g. Prof.), contractions (e.g. Mr), acronyms (e.g. Anzac), and initialisms/alphabetisms (e.g. USA), and the three-dot punctuation mark called ellipsis…
FYI: About Mr Full Stop's introduction in the image above, in case you don’t already know or haven’t looked it up yet, in Australian English the word ‘period’ is rarely used to describe a punctuation mark; so, in the mind of most Australians, given the right context, it’s a monthly bleeding from a woman’s womb.
Would you like to know about other uses of a full stop or any other punctuation mark?
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