Punctuation two styles differ mainly in the way in which they handle quotation marks, particularly in conjunction with other punctuation marks. In British English, punctuation such as periods and commas are placed outside the closing quotation mark; in American English, however, punctuation is placed inside the closing quotation mark. This rule varies for other punctuation marks; for example, American English follows the British English rule when it comes to semicolons, colons, question marks, and exclamation points. Other languages of Europe use much the same punctuation as English. The similarity is so strong that the few variations may confuse a native English
Punctuation of English would prefer coffee." The semicolon is also used to separate list items when the list items contain commas: ""She saw three men: Jamie, who came from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man."" The slash or stroke or solidus is often used to indicate alternatives, such as ""his/her"", or two equivalent meanings or spellings, such as ""grey/gray"". The slash is used in certain set phrases, such as the conjunction ""and/or"". Punctuation of English Punctuation in the English language helps the reader to understand a sentence through visual means other than just the letters of