Happy National Punctuation Day!

Actually, it was yesterday, so Happy Belated National Punctuation Day!

I am a lover of punctuation. Punctuation can change the entire rhythm of a sentence. It can change the entire meaning.

You’ve probably seen this example:

A teacher asked her class to punctuate this sentence:
Woman without her man is nothing.

Half came up with this:
Woman: Without her, man is nothing.

The other half came up with this:
Woman, without her man, is nothing.

And this example always cracks me up:

Let’s eat, Grandpa!
vs
Let’s eat Grandpa!

I’ve been known to get really annoyed with friends who abandon apostrophes and commas in text messages. It’s like a little stab to my heart.

What are your favorite punctuation marks?

My top 3 are:

1. The semicolon
2. The ellipsis
3. The em-dash

Clearly, I like punctuation marks that allow me to extend thoughts.

The Atlantic asked some famous writers and lovers-of-words to discuss their favorite punctuation marks.

One of the most impassioned responders, Drew Magary (author of The Postmortal, contributor to Deadspin, Gawker, and GQ) said this about the period:

“I’m a big fan of the period, because it means that I can take a little breather.  Michael Chabon wrote a novel recently that had a 12-page sentence. Why would you do that to a reader? What kind of asshole doesn’t give the reader a break once in a while? Get me to the period so that I can take a moment to digest and go eat a Pop Tart or something. Withholding that period from me is a real dick move. I also like parentheses because I can do whatever the hell I want inside of them. Commas are the worst because eight billion people have eight billion different ideas about where they’re supposed to go.”

Ha.

>> Read what others say about their favorite punctuation marks