Developer English guide
Punctuation Symbols in English: Names and Examples for Developers
September 25, 2026
You type these symbols dozens of times a day. But do you know their English names? When you join a standup, read a PR comment, or pair program with a colleague, you need to say 'backtick', 'pipe', or 'ampersand' out loud. This guide covers every common symbol with its English name, Spanish equivalent, and a real developer example.
Standard Punctuation
Puntuacion estandar
These symbols appear in everyday writing: emails, PR descriptions, commit messages, and Slack. Many have different names in British and American English, so both are listed.
| Symbol | English name | Example |
|---|---|---|
| . | PeriodFull stop | “End every statement with a period in your commit messages.” |
| , | Comma | “Use a comma to separate items in a list: 'We need to fix the bug, write tests, and deploy.'” |
| ; | Semicolon | “In JavaScript you can omit the semicolon, but the team style guide requires it.” |
| : | Colon | “In TypeScript, add a colon after the variable name to declare its type.” |
| ! | Exclamation markBang | “The bang operator negates a boolean: if (!isLoading) { ... }” |
| ? | Question mark | “Use the question mark for optional chaining: user?.profile?.avatar” |
| ' | ApostropheSingle quote | “Wrap strings in single quotes in Python: name = 'Alice'” |
| "" | Double quotesQuotation marks | “In JSON, keys and string values must be wrapped in double quotes.” |
| '' | Single quotes | “The linter prefers single quotes for strings in this project.” |
| - | HyphenDash | “Use a hyphen between words in a kebab-case CSS class name.” |
| – | En dash | “Use an en dash for numeric ranges in documentation: pages 10–15.” |
| — | Em dash | “She opened the PR—without running the tests—and merged it directly.” |
| () | ParenthesesRound brackets | “Call the function by adding parentheses after its name: doSomething()” |
| [] | Square brackets | “Access an array element using square brackets: items[0]” |
| ... | EllipsisThree dots | “The spread operator uses three dots: const newArr = [...oldArr, newItem]” |
Developer Symbols
Simbolos tecnicos
These symbols are everywhere in code, terminals, config files, and documentation. Knowing their English names helps you communicate clearly during code reviews, pair programming sessions, and technical interviews.
| Symbol | English name | Example |
|---|---|---|
| {} | Curly bracesCurly brackets | “Wrap the function body in curly braces.” |
| <> | Angle bracketsChevrons | “In TypeScript generics, put the type parameter inside angle brackets: Array<string>” |
| / | SlashForward slash | “Separate URL path segments with a forward slash: /api/v1/users” |
| \ | Backslash | “Use a backslash to escape a special character inside a string.” |
| * | AsteriskStar | “The asterisk in a glob pattern matches any file: **/*.ts” |
| & | Ampersand | “The double ampersand is the logical AND operator: if (isValid && isReady)” |
| @ | At signAt symbol | “Use the at sign to tag a reviewer in a GitHub comment: @alice can you review this?” |
| # | HashPound sign / Number sign | “Add a hash at the start of the line to write a comment in Python.” |
| % | PercentModulo operator | “The percent sign is the modulo operator in most languages: 10 % 3 === 1” |
| $ | Dollar sign | “In a shell script, put a dollar sign before a variable name: echo $HOME” |
| _ | Underscore | “Use underscores between words in a snake_case variable name.” |
| | | PipeVertical bar | “Pipe the grep output into wc to count the matching lines: grep 'error' log.txt | wc -l” |
| ~ | Tilde | “In package.json, a tilde before a version allows patch updates: ~1.2.3” |
| ` | BacktickGrave accent | “Wrap the variable in backticks to use it inside a template literal: `Hello, ${name}!`” |
| ^ | Caret | “The caret in package.json allows any compatible minor version: ^2.0.0” |
Key Takeaways
- The . symbol is called 'period' in American English and 'full stop' in British English.
- The ` symbol is called 'backtick'. Use it to say: 'Wrap the string in backticks to create a template literal.'
- The | symbol is called 'pipe' in developer contexts. Example: 'Pipe the output into grep.'
- The # symbol is called 'hash' in British English and 'pound sign' in American English.
- The ^ symbol is called 'caret', and the ~ symbol is called 'tilde'. Both appear in package.json version ranges.
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Written by
Roxana LafuenteLingua-e's founder
Roxana Lafuente is a software engineer with 8+ years of experience. At the beginning of her career, even though she had already passed the First Certificate in English, she still froze every time she had to speak up in the daily standup. That was a gap nobody was fixing. After 2,000+ standups, she figured out what actually builds fluency: practice that looks like your real work. She built Lingua-e so other developers wouldn't have to take the long road to feel confident working in an international development environment.