Punctuate!

National Punctuation Day is September 24. Start practicing now: your life may depend on it!

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Name That Seat on National Punctuation Day!

On National Punctuation Day, let's salute Portland, Oregon's sense of whimsy.

Scattered around TriMet's Yamhill platform are seats like this: question marks, exclamation points, semi-colons, commas — all properly used.

Look around you at all of the ways punctuation helps us understand what is being communicated.  And take a minute to appreciate art as Portland has used it — and think of how you can do the same in your world.

National Punctuation Day: Are You Ready?

How do you plan to celebrate National Punctuation Day September 24?

Will you make sure to use punctuation properly all day?  Will you correct inaccurate punctuation practiced by others?  Will you send around a sentence and ask friends and family to properly punctuate it?

Or will you write an ode to poetry?

I challenge you to write a punctuation poem.  Anything you want, however you want.  The only rule: send your poem(s) to me.  I will gladly publish any and all punctuation poems.  I'll even publish them anonymously, if you prefer.

All submissions will win a book of poetry.

Well, what are you waiting for?  Go write a punctuation poem!

Punctuation What Would We Do Without It

Hopefully the title of this blog has made my point.

There's not a soul who employs punctuation in any language who has not misread a sentence because a hyphen was missing or an apostrophe pluralized rather than claimed ownership.

For fun, see how many different ways you can write this sentence with different punctuation: What is this thing called love.  Then share your creative (though accurate!) application of punctuation in the comments section below.

Happy Punctuation Day!

How Do You Celebrate National Punctuation Day?

David and I were talking about punctuation just last night.

He asked me if he needed to use a colon or semi-colon. I was glad to tell him what to do. (It happens so seldom.)

I just discovered there is an entire day dedicated to the use of punctuation. September 24 is National Punctuation Day. The NPD Web site offers a recipe for the Official Meatloaf of the Day. (David would make mine with ground fake meat.) Make it in the shape of your favorite punctuation.

The Web site also offers suggestion on how to celebrate the day. A few ideas:

• Take a leisurely stroll, paying close attention to store signs with incorrectly punctuated words.
• Stop in those stores to correct the owners.
• If the owners are not there, leave notes.

My family is well aware of my obsession with grammar and punctuation. There is a restaurant in Utah that will forever be remembered as "the one with the incorrect use of an apostrophe on the sign." (It also will be remembered for "very slow service from a perfectly nice waitress.") For the record, I did not leave a note or point it out to the manager. It was Mother's Day and he had many other pressing issues, like feeding all of the mothers in the room. I cannot speak to whether Valerie might have taken the matter into her own hands after our departure.

I cannot say the same about the note in the ladies room at the local movie theater.

Feel free to visit the Web site and see some of the punctuation errors caught on film and posted for all to see. Laugh with them — only because you might cry at the egregious errors.

And remember: you can do it! Punctuation is not rocket science. It's communication, and that's even more important. (Without communication, how could you learn about rocket science?) It is something we all can understand and use correctly so our communication is clear.

Now, go out and do your part: punctuate well!