Practical International Data Management - Punctuation
Punctuation differs markedly between languages and scripts. Not only are other punctuation marks used, the same marks may be used for different reasons in different languages, e.g. the apostrophe and the full stop. Collecting data without allowing for the collection of punctuation is a mistake as it is essential. In Catalan, for example, a middle dot (l·l) indicates a different pronounciation to a double ell without the middle dot.
Examples
The middle dot in Catalan (l·l)
The full stop within words in Italian to indicate abbreviations (Sig.ra)
A colon shows a contraction in Swedish:
Processing
Always allow data to be collected with punctuation
Punctuation is found in postal addresses and may be important not only to make the address better formatted and more readable for the customer, but also as an indication of what the elements indicate. In a building number, for example, a hyphen (-) may indicate a sub-building indicator whilst a slash (/) may indicate a number range. This differs by country and region. It is essential that addresses are punctuated correctly, that input forms allow punctuation to be added, and that no processes strip or remove punctuation.
