Question

Choose the option which correctly punctuates the sentence:
Peter said to John, Will you help me make dinner?”
a) “Peter said to John, will you help me make dinner?”
b) Peter said to John, “Will you help me make dinner”?
c) Peter said to John, “Will you help me make dinner?”
d) NO CHANGE

Answer 1

Hint: The words ‘Peter’ and ‘John’ are proper nouns, in direct speech, the inverted commas encircle the actual phrase being said, and include any punctuation mark at the end of the sentence.

Complete answer:
 Punctuation is the use of spacing, conventional signs, and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of the written text, whether read silently or aloud and it is extremely important in the English language, as different punctuation can change the meaning of the same sentence.

Let’s first unpack the given sentence. The first part of the sentence reads ‘Peter said to John’. These are clearly names. They are proper nouns. So, this is correctly punctuated. Then, there should ideally be a comma as the phrase ends, but not completely. The inverted commas should contain the entire question, and there should be no full stop.
In the given sentence, there are no starting inverted commas. This is an error. However, everything else in the sentence is correct.

Now, we know what punctuation we need to have. Let’s look at the different options:

option ‘a’ - The entire sentence is contained within inverted commas. This is incorrect, as only the phrase being said should be within inverted commas. The first letter of the word ‘will’ isn’t capitalised. This is an incorrect option.
option ‘b’ - The entire sentence is almost correct, except at the end, the punctuation mark is outside the inverted commas. This is incorrect as it changes the meaning of the sentence. So, this is an incorrect option.
option ‘c’ - The entire sentence is correctly punctuated. The inverted commas and punctuation marks are correctly placed and the correct letters have been capitalized. This is the correct option.
option ‘d’ - This is an incorrect option as we have already found the correct option from the above options.

Note:
 Look at the given sentence and read it out loud. This will help you understand what kind of sentence it is. Look for grammatical anomalies, and correct them. Then, choose the option that has the correct punctuation.