Punctuation, please

I find it surprising that some writers over the years have disliked and/ or discarded punctuation. I have always thought punctuation to be a writer's best friend, or at least in the top ten. And it's an even better  friend to the reader.

Gertrude Stein

Quotation marks may be the most commonly discarded punctuation marks. Some writers use dashes to indicate speech, making it difficult to place a quote inside a paragraph. Others use italics. Some use nothing at all. Gertrude Stein called quotation marks "unnecessary" and "ugly." Had I not used quotation marks there, you might have thought those words were mine, not hers.

Stein also thought question marks to be "positively revolting" and commas to be "servile." Of course commas are servile. That's what they do. They serve both the writer and the reader.

As an example, here is a line from a novel I am currently reading, In the Dark Places by Peter Robinson, first without the commas: "As he walked toward the hangar entrance the dog trotting by his side his stick clicked on the concrete." Now with just a little effort you can figure that out, but it's not a simple sentence even with the commas. Put them in, however, and it's a significant improvement: "As he walked toward the hangar entrance, the dog trotting by his side, his stick clicked on the concrete."

Commas can be overused. I often struggle with whether I should put them in or leave them out. I usually end up reading the sentence out loud to determine which sounds best.

Most of us use punctuation in our speech. We can hear it, even if we can't see it. Our voices go up a bit on the last word when we ask a question. That's our question mark. We pause slightly for commas and longer for periods. You can usually tell when a speaker is directly quoting someone else or simply paraphrasing. You can always hear exclamation points. If speech needs punctuation to be clear and obvious, then surely writing does too.

Writers who mess with punctuation seem to think their work is creative, independent, progressive, modern or whatever. I just find it annoying.