A day to celebrate all those little squiggles and wiggles that give greater depth and clarity and meaning to written communication!
Go ahead - visit http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/ to learn about the true differences between a hyphen and a dash, enjoy some incorrectly punctuated signs in the photo gallery, cook the official meatloaf of punctuation day (seriously), order a t-shirt or coffee mug with excellent slogans to support the educational cause. Apprentice Writer's favorites:
"A semicolon is not a surgical procedure" , and
"An ellipsis is not when the moon moves in front of the sun"
One can't help but admire the zeal of founder Jeff Rubin, a former newspaperman. He not only got National Punctuation Day recognized, but went on to create a superb educational program that tours grade schools; aiming to get kids excited about correct punctuation in a fun way, it features himself as a caped crusader. To paraphrase a film critic of The Full Monty, (who remarked that the willingness of a group of highly average guys to humiliate themselves by going starkers to financially support their families showed true nobility), doesn't a man who is neither vampire nor opera singer yet who dons a cape in a good cause deserve respect and support?
In this spirit, Apprentice Writer will spend the day striving to use all possible punctuation forms. So far, ? ! ( ) , ; : - " " down, [ ] ... -- to go.
2 comments:
All hail punctuation day!! I'm going to save that site for the next time I have to teach Professional Email Writing. :)
i didn't know 'professional email writing' was a niche market. how smart of you to think of it.
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