National Punctuation Day
Monday, September 24th by carlaIn a scene from The West Wing, President Bartlett challenges his staff to list all 13 punctuation marks in English. They begin bravely but founder, and he has to finish the list for them.
Too bad they missed National Punctuation Day. Oh, wait! That’s TODAY!
National Punctuation Day was established 4 years ago as a way to remind people that those little marks carry meaning and need attention. Most of us have probably seen these classic examples of meaning changed by punctuation:
Give me a man who reads!
Give me a man! Who reads?Woman without her man is nothing.
Woman — without her, man is nothing.Mother said, “Tommy, the turtle has escaped.”
Mother said, “Tommy the turtle has escaped.”
“Mother,” said Tommy, “the turtle has escaped.”
“Mother,” said Tommy the turtle, “has escaped!”
As teachers we see reminders every day that punctuation needs to be taught, retaught, and even overtaught to prevent unfortunate lapses like these.
OK, here’s the quiz: which punctuation mark is missing? (No fair looking at your keyboard. The answer is below.)
.
,
?
!
;
:
[ ]
–
. . .
-
( )
“ ”
Be sure to visit The Web of Language and The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks for more thoughts on the skillful use of punctuation.
Scroll down for the missing mark
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The missing mark is the apostrophe.
(I missed Talk like a Pirate Day — shiver me timbers! Special thanks to Alex for the heads-up today!)
September 24th, 2007 at 9:00 am
I think the comma is the most misunderstood mark of punctuation, followed closely by the apostrophe!
If people read (or even listened to the CD) Eats, Shoots and Leaves, they might have a better chance at getting commas straightened out.
Apostrophes used for purposes other than possession or contractions (or plurals of special characters) just amaze me — and sometimes from people whom I consider educated! I saw one today in a cafe: Hashbrowns were listed on the menu as “hashbrown’s” — I wonder what they owned!!
LOL =)