<|im_start|>user
Based on this paragraph, please summarize Cormac McCarthy's use of punctuation.

Context:
McCarthy uses punctuation sparsely, even replacing most commas with "and" to create polysyndetons; it has been called "the most important word in McCarthy's lexicon". He told Oprah Winfrey that he prefers "simple declarative sentences" and that he uses capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, or a colon for setting off a list, but never semicolons, which he has labelled as "idiocy". He does not use quotation marks for dialogue and believes there is no reason to "blot the page up with weird little marks". Erik Hage notes that McCarthy's dialogue often lacks attribution, but that "Somehow ... the reader remains oriented as to who is speaking." His attitude to punctuation dates to some editing work he did for a professor of English while enrolled at the University of Tennessee, when he stripped out much of the punctuation in the book being edited, which pleased the professor. McCarthy edited fellow Santa Fe Institute Fellow W. Brian Arthur's influential article "Increasing Returns and the New World of Business", published in the Harvard Business Review in 1996, removing commas from the text. He has also done copy-editing work for physicists Lawrence M. Krauss and Lisa Randall.<|im_end|>
<|im_start|>assistant
Cormac McCarthy is known for his preference to avoid punctuation in situations when it is commonly used. Two typical examples of replacing commas with the word "and" and avoiding quotation marks when characters in his novels are speaking.<|im_end|>
