In texts, particular attention is required for brackets, quotation marks, hyphenation, dashes and slashes; upper case, heavy type, underlining and italics: the writer may be conveying doubts, or defensive emphasis, respectively. The appearance of quotation marks around previously unquoted words in a text suggests that doubts have occurred as the author has been writing. The disappearance of quotation marks from words in a text suggests that the words have been integrated into the language as the author has been writing: both of these punctuation sequences appear in “Selfishness as second-order altruism”. In “Perceptual fusion of musical notes by native Amazonians suggests universal representations of musical intervals”, brackets and quotation marks both appear around the word (‘fusion’) in the fourth sentence of the abstract, not having appeared in the title, and then they disappear in the sixth sentence of the abstract, not to be seen again: whatever was meant by the brackets and by the quotation marks has fused with the word “fusion”. See also ‘Double-blind’ trials and Verb number.

The more formal a text, the more prevaricative is ellipsis.

Drafters of wills may omit punctuation, which emphasises the relationship between punctuation and meaning.

Excessive use of exclamation marks conveys an inhibited disposition, because revelatory moments are more frequent than when there has been penetration of thought.

Abbreviations such as ‘etc.’ abbreviate the reader’s focus.

Acronyms may obfuscate: the explicit meaning of ROI is Regions of Interest, but the implicit meaning is sampling error.

Unexplained acronyms irritate: WTHDYM?