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National Punctuation Day

Doctor Q

Doctor Q

Administrator
Original poster
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
40,486
9,450
Los Angeles
Theres a new holiday (National Punctuation day, to be celebrated every August's 22. The first such celebration; was two weeks ago.,

I think its great and Il'l observe it's date each year. "Hooray,, I" say!

link


New national holiday - National Punctuation Day - celebrates the lowly comma, correctly used quotes, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons and the ever mysterious ellipsis. It's a day for librarians, educators, and parents - people who are interested in teaching and promoting good writing skills to their students and their children.
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I can t believe that I missed the celebration Oh well I am not that big a fan of punctuation anyway :D
 
We need more days like that. I think we should have an on-going contest on the forums for the person with the best overall grammar.
 
The mall named Beverly Center (not far from "The Grove" Apple Store in Los Angeles) has a wooden sculpture that I've always liked. It's a stack of punctuation marks!

I found this photo at http://www.geocities.co.jp/SilkRoad-Desert/7577/DIARY0312.html:

beverly_center.JPG
 
That statue is very interesting Doctor Q.

Just a thought, wonder why this new "National Punctuation Day," isn't celebrated during the school year? As the article states a great time for teachers to emphasize the use of grammar and punctuation.
 
Macmaniac said:
Sticklers unite, this is one of those days for people who read Eats Shoots and Leaves
I bet there is a bunch of people here who will be celebrating this day.
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Great book! Finally, a holiday for my picky english teacher from last year! :D :D ;)
 
wdlove said:
Just a thought, wonder why this new "National Punctuation Day," isn't celebrated during the school year? As the article states a great time for teachers to emphasize the use of grammar and punctuation.
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You are right. That would make more sense. The date of August 22 was picked because it is the birthday of the originator of the holiday, Jeff Rubin, owner/publisher of the "Put it in Writing" newsletter publishing company.
 
They should make punctuation day a vacation day. A day to get away from punctuation in English class, just like Labor day is a day to get away from work.
 
national punctuation day is on a school day for me! (I live in texas) :confused:
 
Apple Hobo said:
I LOVA PUNTUATION!!1!111! WTF LOL I DO SO GOD AT IT1111!!!! WTF LOL IM DA BST AT GRMM3R!!11!11 LOL[/URL]
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Obviously, nobody can understand this foreign language, so I translated it from AOL to English for the rest of you. Here's what Apple Hobo said:
Commas are used to connect a series of words, phrases and clauses. Semicolons are used to connect independent clauses and provide clarity in a "comma heavy" sentence. Colons are used to let the reader know that a list or restatement is to follow. Dashes are used to indicate a dramatic break in the sentence's direction. Hyphens are used to connect compound modifiers. Quotation marks are used to enclose words and phrases written or spoken by another and to enclose certain types of titles.
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And in case you don't know the difference between a dash and a hyphen, it's easy to tell them apart. The dash is the unshifted symbol on the key to the right of the zero key on the American keyboard. The hyphen, on the other hand, is the unshifted symbol on the key to the left of the equal sign on the American keyboard.

I'm glad I could clear all that up for you! ;) ;) ;)
 
crazzyeddie said:
We need more days like that. I think we should have an on-going contest on the forums for the person with the best overall grammar.
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On this board? We'll have to wade through all the "their there they're" mistakes and "definatly's" out there first...
 
Really, the hyphen is different from the dash. An en dash is the length of the letter "n", and is used to join two parts of a word broken by a line break. An em dash is the length of the letter "m", and is used for denoting parenthetical statements and for ranges of values (i.e. "sixteen to twenty" becomes 16—20). It is often typed as a pair of hyphens together. A hyphen is used to create compound words.

—Em dash: option-shift-hyphen
–En dash: option-hyphen
-Hyphen
 
You are right of course, Daveman, but didn't you see all my smilies?

As long as you brought it up, however, it is an interesting subject. The en dash and em dash came from typesetting, and were around long before computers were helping. Not only aren't they hyphens, but they aren't minus signs either. And computers have both soft hyphens and hard hyphens. We sure use those little lines for a lot of purposes!

Here's a good set of notes about typesetting, including how the usage of the en dash and em dash differ in Europe:
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-20547/stylework/typograph1-en.html
 
All I want is a list of the names of all of the various typsetting symbols. For example, I know that the # is called an octothorpe, and that … is called an ellipsis, and that & is an ampersand, and so forth, but what about % and @ and © and all the others? Surely most, if not all, have a name that is unknown to me.
 
I am SO glad that holiday is during the summer... my English teacher would have a ball if it was during the school year.
"Today we'll be discussing the reasoning behind every piece of punctuation in this story, in honor of national punctuation day!"
*nooooooooo!!*
 
Doctor Q said:
Theres a new holiday (National Punctuation day, to be celebrated every August's 22. The first such celebration; was two weeks ago.,

I think its great and Il'l observe it's date each year. "Hooray,, I" say!
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You sure this is a "new" holiday?

I could have sworn we've been celebrating a Puctuation Nazi holiday, around the beginning of April, for years. :confused:
 
In the immortal words of William Shatner:

Bill Shatner* said:
Punctuation. Day. Is. Real. Important... It. Should. Raise. Earthling's. Awareness. About. How. Important. Punctuation. His... ... ... And. I. Made. It. With. A. Green. Chick. Baam!
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* Not to be confused with the fake Slim Shady.
 
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