Punctuation and symbols

Reviewed conventions, examples, and the sources behind them.

The checks below catch specific patterns in your text. They support your review; passing them does not verify every part of a convention.

Questions always end with a question mark

Genius staff guidance

Question and exclamation marks

Every question ends with a question mark, even though lyric lines never take terminal periods or commas.

Incorrect

Where do we go from here

Correct

Where do we go from here?

Exceptions and context

The linter flags only openings that are unmistakably interrogative; whether the rest of a sung line asks a question is a judgment about delivery that only the transcriber can make.

What LyricLint checks

A question with no question mark
Flagged example
```
[Verse]
Where are you
```
The line begins with a strong question construction. Punctuation can still depend on delivery, so insertion is preview-only.
Accepted by this check
```
[Verse]
<i>Where are you?</i>
```
See trigger and fix
A period at the end of a line
Flagged example
```
[Verse]
A lyric line.
```
Apple Music lyric guidance explicitly excludes commas and periods at line endings. The current Genius guide separately requires question marks for questions and uses exclamation marks for excitement, but does not state the same blanket ban. Removal is preview-only so quotations, abbreviations, and intentional delivery remain reviewable.
Accepted by this check
```
[Verse]
A lyric line!
```
See trigger and fix

Exclamation marks only mark excitement

Genius staff guidance

Question and exclamation marks

An exclamation mark records excitement in the delivery; a line performed without it does not take one.

One exclamation mark at a time

Genius staff guidance

Question and exclamation marks

Doubled exclamation marks are never kept: where several arrive in a row, all but one are removed.

Incorrect

Turn it up!!

Correct

Turn it up!

Exceptions and context

Mechanically checkable, so a candidate for a linter rule — which this entry would then name as checking it.

Never double a brand name's own mark

Genius staff guidance

Question and exclamation marks

A line that would take a question or exclamation mark of its own — from its grammatical structure or its apparent excitement — and ends on a brand name already carrying one (Guess Who?, Yahoo!, Chips Ahoy!) does not take a second: the name's single mark holds for the line.

Incorrect

Have you ever played Guess Who??

Correct

Have you ever played Guess Who?

Quotes mark titles, speech, and mentions

Genius staff guidance

Quotation marks

Quotation marks serve three jobs in a lyric: a song title the words name, a passage the artist explicitly performs as something said elsewhere, and a word the line refers to as a word.

Correct

She said, "Meet me where the river bends"

Exceptions and context

The linter checks only the glyphs — typewriter quotation marks, never curly; whether a passage is quoted speech, a named title, or a mentioned word is the transcriber's reading.

What LyricLint checks

A curly quote in lyric text
Flagged example
```
[Verse]
“Hello”
```
The exact curly quote can be replaced mechanically. Lines containing unsupported markup are excluded so the fixer never rewrites uncertain markup.
Accepted by this check
```
[Verse]
"Hello"
```
See trigger and fix

Hyphenate scatting and stutters

Genius staff guidance

Hyphens join rapidly spoken non-lyrical vocalization — scatting — and the repeated fragments of a stuttered word; a stutter produced artificially, by effects, sampling, or scratching, may be left out.

Correct

D-d-don't say it twice

Exceptions and context

The em-dash half of the dashes annotation — a dash for a dropped word or line, never followed by a comma — is checked by the linter outright.

What LyricLint checks

A comma straight after an em dash
Flagged example
```
[Verse]
A word—, then silence
```
The comma directly after the em dash is mechanically detectable, but the punctuation change remains preview-only.
Accepted by this check
```
[Verse]
A word—then silence
```
See trigger and fix

Check a transcription in the workbench