Arcade · Punctuation Department
Night Shift at the Precinct
The same words can take any end mark.
The Mayor: Listen for what the speaker means, and then send the case to the officer who handles it.
It is a quiet night at the Punctuation Department. Then the wire lights up. Every sentence that comes in is missing the one thing that ends it, and here is the catch: the very same sentence can need a period, a question mark, or an exclamation mark. It all depends on what the speaker means. Read the scene first.
Officer Period
.
A statement. Just the facts.
Detective Question Mark
?
A question. It asks.
Sergeant Exclamation Mark
!
Strong feeling. Said with force.
Sergeant Exclamation Mark: Same words, different feeling, different mark! That is the whole job tonight. Read the scene, then call it.