English Language Mechanics Mechanics of English. How one speaks is of utmost importance. Just watch the 1964 movie, “My Fair Lady” or read the original play of George Bernard Shaw’s, “Pygmalion”. Equally important is getting the mechanics of the language correct. It is akin to the accent of speech. Part of it deals with the language presentation in its visual form. Just as society judges you on your accent or the way you speak, you need to get the visual rules right to have your writing taken seriously by those who read it. Punctuation mark indentation rules were established when the typewriter was invented for business world correspondence and has now become the accepted standard. Therefore if you wish your English presented in the best light, you must adhere to these rules. I shall deal with the most common ones. See how they are handled in this essay. The general rule is: no spacing before a punctuation mark and one space after it. This includes the comma, the semicolon and the colon. However separate sentences require 2 spaces. This means that sentences delimited by the period (full stop), exclamation mark (interjection) and the question mark require 2 spaces. Example: No space before the period. Notice there are two spaces before this sentence! Can you see them? There are two spaces separating all these sentences. Parenthesis (rounded and square) and quotes (double and single): no space before and after the enclosing marks. Example: “See there are no spaces in the after the first and last quotes” This rule overrides the spacing rules for other punctuation marks just before the end of the enclosed mark. Example: “See there are no spaces even after the period just before the end of the quotes.” Dash: one space before and after it. Example: See the spacing before and after this dash – can you see it? Always leave a blank line between paragraphs! Finally, besides indentation, there are other visual aspects that reflect on the cultural issues of the English language. This includes capitalization of every first letter beginning in a sentence and that all “i”s must be capitalized regardless where it appears when referring to oneself. These rules are inviolate. I sincerely hope that it is the ignorance of these rules and not laziness or sloppiness in making an otherwise wonderful piece of writing look like a piece of crap. It is like going near a pretty person only to find out he/she has such foul breath!