The new punctuation marks we all need. Right now.

by KAHLA PRESTON

Community service announcement: punctuation is important.

In fact, punctuation is SO vital it can be the difference between life and death. Don’t believe me? Consider exhibit A: “Let’s eat Grandma!” v. Exhibit B: “Let’s eat, Grandma!” (Yeah, that humble little comma just saved your Grandma from death by cannibalism. You think about that.)

The problem is, our language’s current range of punctuation marks is severely lacking. The advent of texting and instant messaging is largely to blame, because these communication avenues have created grammatical needs that never really existed before.

For example, so many of my tongue-in-cheek texts have been misinterpreted over the years that now I’ve resorted to punctuating my texts with “haha”s and cheeky smiley faces. That may be acceptable when you’re, say, 14 years old; but when you’re a so-called adult it’s not really very sophisticated.

Life would be so much easier if there was a punctuation mark to denote humour, sarcasm, or even flirting. Think of all the fights and misunderstandings – not to mention the unnecessary use of emoticons – that could be avoided.

Thankfully, the folk at College Humour have come to the rescue with this collection of punctuation marks that don’t exist, but should. Memo to the Gods of the English Language: please make these happen.

You can view the full gallery here.

Which of these new punctuation marks would you use most often?