Over the first twenty four hours I’ve struggled with Siri’s punctuation. Having read a number of articles, I saw that “period”, “comma”, “question mark” and others should be instantly recognised, but it seems to take a knack. It’s the same, really, with any dictation software. You need to get used to it.
“Period” however just doesn’t seem to work for me. After some trial and error I tried the British “full stop” and was surprised to see a period, or full point, appear in the text. I am not sure if “full stop” is used in the US, although we certainly use “period” often. I still can’t get “period” to work and I can only conclude that this is something to do with the British English settings. Most other punctuation works well, providing you leave a very short pause between the last work and the common.¹ Semi-colon and colon, even dash, are interpreted correctly.
If it doesn’t work for you, I suggest practice. Eventually you will get the knack.
I have tried voice recognition software in the past but the novelty has eventually worn off. This time, though, with the microphone key present on the keyboard at all times, I might just persevere.
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¹ Well spotted. Reader David, see below, rightly surmised I dictated this post with Siri. Actually, not Siri specifically, but the build-in dictation facility that lurks behind the microphone key next to the spacebar on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. Unfortunately, though, Siri doesn’t yet deal with proof reading. That’s down to me and in this instance I failed miserably.
I did, but that doesn't excuse sloppy proof reading, with which I am usually careful. I will update the post and thanks for pointing it out. I've also sent a few nonsense texts thanks to Siri, but a workman should not blame his tools!
"provided you leave a very short pause between the last work and the common" – did you mean between the "last word and the comma"? I'm guessing you used Siri to dictate this post!