Where would we be without punctuation Nowhere thats where So celebrate National Punctuation Day today
(Thanks to colleague Ruth Thaler-Carter for pointing out this auspicious occasion.)
Punctuation is one those things you don't notice until it's not there, like electricity or water.
I still remember the day in my junior year high school English class when one of Miss McGrath's grammar lessons lit up my head like the proverbial light bulb. I loved diagramming sentences (no, I wasn't a suck-up, just a geek). From that day on I knew when to use : or ; or . I knew the difference between an adverb and adjective. Gerunds became my personal favorite.
It wasn't until the late 90s when I taught myself HTML that I learned there were two types of dashes, en and em, which are different from the hyphen and the minus sign. All four have distinct meanings.
Punctuation is the jewelry of writing. The exclamation point is the flashy diamond. The period is the clasp closing the necklace of words.
What would we do without it I hope I never have to find out
