CHAPTER 4 Punctuation: End Marks and Commas^93
likely as children with none to have a chronic health condition such as diabetes,
asthma, or mental retardation
Paragraph 2
Where does chocolate come from? Actually, it does grow on trees It all starts with
a small tropical tree, the Theobroma cacao, usually simply called “cacao” (It is
pronounced ka-KOW Theobroma is Greek for “food of the gods”) Cacao is native
to Central America and South America, but it is grown commercially throughout
the tropics About 70 percent of the world’s cacao is grown in Africa
A cacao tree can produce close to two thousand pods per year The ridged, football-
shaped pod, or fruit, of the cacao grows from the branches and, oddly, straight out of
the trunk The pods, which mature throughout the year, encase a sticky, white pulp
and about thirty or forty seeds The pulp is both sweet and tart; it is eaten and used in
making drinks The seeds, were you to bite into one straight out of the pod, are incred-
ibly bitter Not at all like the chocolate that comes from them
It’s actually a perfect design The fruit attracts forest animals, like monkeys, who
eat the fruit but cast the seeds aside, dispersing them and allowing new trees to
sprout up (One of my favorite memories of a recent trip to Costa Rica was watching
monkeys eating in a “chocolate” tree) It’s hard to imagine why humans ever thought
to do anything with the seeds.*
Question Mark
The question mark, another end mark, has an obvious use: It is used to ask a ques-
tion or make an inquiry:
Are you coming?Did Jack say you were coming?Again, when you use a question mark, do not use any other end mark. The excep-
tion, of course, is when an abbreviation precedes the question mark. For example:
Did you say that Jack is starting his job at All Things Computer, Inc.?*Adapted with permission from facts-about-chocolate.com.