import unicodedata


def _is_punctuation(char):
    """Checks whether `chars` is a punctuation character."""
    cp = ord(char)
    # We treat all non-letter/number ASCII as punctuation.
    # Characters such as "^", "$", and "`" are not in the Unicode
    # Punctuation class but we treat them as punctuation anyways, for
    # consistency.
    if ((cp >= 33 and cp <= 47) or (cp >= 58 and cp <= 64) or
        (cp >= 91 and cp <= 96) or (cp >= 123 and cp <= 126)):
        return True
    cat = unicodedata.category(char)
    if cat.startswith("P"):
        return True
    return False