National Punctuation Day
About National Punctuation Day
When is National Punctuation Day? This holiday is always celebrated on September 24
What you write, and how you write it, is a reflection of you. Today is a day to celebrate perfectly composed correspondence. It’s National Punctuation Day. Punctuation often alters the meaning of what you write. It guides the reader on how to read a sentence, and the implication of the words. And, it may change a sentence for the worse. On this September 24 holiday, take pride in your written words. Strive to be grammatically correct and properly use punctuation characters in all of your writing.
Nowadays there are few excuses for spelling and grammatical errors in our electronic writings. Spell Checkers and more recent Grammar Checkers eliminate most errors as long as we take advantage of these apps. However, we must keep in mind that they are excellent tools, but they are not perfect. Therefore, don’t use them blindly. Rather, use your brain in addition to these apps.
Why National Punctuation Day Exists
Jeff Rubin from the San Francisco, CA area created this holiday. Jeff was a newsletter publisher and former reporter. In the early 2000s, he became increasingly frustrated by poor and erroneous punctuation. He found numerous errors in practically everything he read. But, most notably erroneous punctuation was all too frequent in newspapers. Perhaps the best example of the effect of punctuation that Rubin provided, is the difference between “Let’s eat Grandma” and “Let’s eat, Grandma”.
Particularly, schools were not emphasizing and teaching proper punctuation sufficiently. In the early 2000s, the fast-paced world grew faster and faster. The arrival of the internet, texts, and tweets sacrificed proper grammar and punctuation for speed. An almost whole new written language began to evolve. The upcoming generation embraced this lack punctuation and incomplete sentences. They felt as long as the message came across, the written words were “good enough”. Jeff Rubin disagreed. He felt punctuation and proper grammar remain important.
So, Jeff decided to do something about it. For starters, he created National Punctuation Day in 2004. Then he used this platform and his website to encourage and promote proper punctuation. Since then, he annually announces themes and ideas on how to promote and accomplish better punctuation.
Types of Punctuation
There are 26 punctuation characters. Some we use every time we write something. For example, we use a period, question mark, or exclamation point every time we conclude a sentence. Other characters are less common and seldom used. And, you might not even know a few of them exist. Here are all of the punctuation characters you can use in writing:
Period
Comma
Colon
Semicolon
At sign
Slash
Back slash
Ampersand
Apostrophe
Question mark
Exclamation point
Ellipses
Bullet point
Pipe symbol
Hyphen
Pound symbol
En dash
Em dash
Parentheses
Tilde
Asterisk
Caret symbol
Quotation mark
Square brackets
Curly brackets
Angle brackets
How to Celebrate National Punctuation Day
Indeed, there are many ways you can celebrate and enjoy during National Punctuation Day. Here are some of them:
- It is most important to take pride in everything you write. Endeavor to properly employ punctuation characters.
- While writing a paragraph or an article, see how many punctuation characters you can use.
- Next, become a proofreader. Grab a copy of the newspaper or a magazine. Then, see how many punctuation errors you can find.
- Critique texts and email from your friends. How many errors can you find?
- Familiarize yourself with Grammar checkers. Certainly, use them with everything you write.
- Educators should use this holiday to conduct lessons on proper punctuation.
- Likewise, take pride in your writing skills.
- Improve your writing skills by taking a writing course.
- Use Emoticons. They are comprised of punctuation characters. 🙂
- Avoiding all punctuation today is a daunting task. It means no texts, Emails, or reading in general. Instead, we suggest Scrabble, Word Search, Words with Friends, and other word games.
National Punctuation Day Quotes
“Your grammar is a reflection of your image. Good or bad, you have made an impression. And like all impressions, you are in total control.” – – Jeffrey Gitomer
“I’m tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.” – – Steve Martin
History and Origin of National Punctuation Day
Jeff Rubin from San Francisco, CA created National Punctuation Day to promote proper punctuation. Rubin listed it in 2004 Chase Calendar of Events. Rubin originally set September 22 as the date to celebrate this holiday. This is Jeff’s birthday. Then, two years later in 2004, he changed the date to September 24 for two reasons. First, he wanted to better align the holiday with the school year. And importantly, he selected September 24 because it is the birthdate of Willy Mays, his baseball hero.
However, there is no known documentation confirming this to be a “National” day. We found no congressional records or presidential proclamation.
Definition of “National” Days– And find out why it is important to distinguish true national days.
This Day in History
In addition to the National Punctuation Day, here are some things that happened on this day:
- With a fleet of 17 ships, Christopher Columbus sets sail on his second expedition to the New World. (1493)
- The television comedy series “The Big Bang Theory” premieres. (2007)
- Jim Henson, puppeteer, created the “Muppets”, was born on this day in 1936.
More September 24 Holidays
By all means, National Punctuation Day is not the only September 24 holiday. Here is another one for you to celebrate and enjoy:
More About Today
Recipe of the Day: Pumpkin Bread/Cake
Also See: Fall Recipes and Holiday Recipes
Flower of the Day: Tickseed
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Did You Know? Furthermore, in addition to National Punctuation Day, there are literally thousands of daily holidays, special events, and observances, more than one for every day of the year. Many of these holidays are new. People and organizations are creating new holidays on a regular basis. September holidays are no exception. At Holiday Insights, we take great efforts to thoroughly research and document the details of each one, as completely and accurately as possible.