Celebrate National Punctuation Day Every September 24

• By NSC
• 2 Comments.

 

 

If you spend any time at all on social media, you’ve probably seen some version of the Let’s eat grandma!/Let’s eat, grandma! meme. Or you’ve experienced the utter confusion of trying to read a post without any capitalization or punctuation whatsoever.

Well, never fear. National Punctuation Day is here to spread awareness of how to use those commas, apostrophes, colons, and other assorted marks that make the written word understandable.

Jeff Rubin started the day in 2004 and asks fans of correct punctuation and spelling to share pictures of errors they find in their everyday lives.

 

A Snippet of Punctuation Facts and Trivia

Punctuation seems to scare a lot of people, but it’s really not that hard. And there’s a lot more flexibility than your grade school English teachers may have let on. (For example, you can in fact start a sentence with and, but, or, or most any other conjunction).

But certain rules are hard and fast. Like apostrophes. They’re for

• Contractions: For example, “they’re” is the shortened version of “they are.”
• Showing possession: For example, “the cat’s toys are everywhere.”

They are not for

• Plural nouns: The word “toys” in the previous example does not need an apostrophe (“toy’s” is wrong!).
• Dates: It’s 1990s, not 1990’s.

 

Of course, punctuation is (sometimes sadly) always changing. And even the hard and fast rules may not be …

Once upon a time 1990’s was actually the correct way to write dates. Why did it change? No clue! Some people even want to Kill The Apostrophe completely. Some day they may very well succeed! But not today.

(And since we’ve linked to the Web Archive version of the page because the last time we tried to visit the page was blank … well, we’re thinking they’re losing that battle).

Hyphens, on the other hand, may be going the way of the dodo bird (it’s extinct). Often when we create new compound words we hyphenate them. Then we slowly turn them into one word.

For example, once upon a time today was to-day, blackbird was black-bird and email was E-mail. The transition seems to be going faster. So one day soon we’ll probably just skip the hyphenation step.

Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficially nit-picky (but in a good way!) holiday.

 

 

Ideas For Celebrating National Punctuation Day

Correct all the punctuation errors you find all day:

• If it’s a store sign, stop in and talk to the owner or manager.
• If it’s online, leave a comment (Yes, even on this post!).
• If they’re in the newspaper (yes, the physical paper newspaper), circle them in red, clip them out, and send them in with a letter to the editor.

 

Now, depending on where you go and what websites you visit, this could be a very busy day for you! So go home and relax with a glass of wine. Take a long soak in the tub if you’d like.

Then head over the the official NPD website to check out this year’s National Punctuation Day contest! It starts on National Punctuation Day and runs through the end of October.

Share the best punctuation errors you’ve ever seen. If you have a picture email it to Jeff, and then head on over to our Facebook page to share with us too.

Double-check your own use of punctuation. Even if you’re better than average, there may be one or more punctuation marks you’re less than sure of. So learn!

Some grammar books also include interesting bits of history about some punctuation marks and their usage.

If you don’t already have copies, consider getting one or more of these books:

• Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, by Patricia O’Connor
• Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun & Spite, by June Casagrande
• The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation: An Easy-to-Use Guide with Clear Rules, Real-World Examples, and Reproducible Quizzes, 11th Edition
• The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition: The classic Strunk & White guide to writing.

 

What are your plans for this National Punctuation Day?

 

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