Hello? Its National Punctuation Day. Here in the journalism world punctuation is important run-on sentences, are bad and incorrect punctuation can change the meaning of sentences commas in the wrong, place can also have that effect? Its easy to slip up and good grammar is hard to find! these days:That was maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write! (And I meant to put that exclamation point there. And look at me go with the parentheses!)As a journalist, I obviously pride myself on my grammar skills and National Punctuation Day should be a friggin’ holiday as far as I’m concerned. Let us celebrate commas, brackets, dashes, hyphens, periods, question marks, exclamation marks, colons and semi-colons, for they work wonders with the written word.For example, look at how easily a comma can change the meaning of something:Let’s eat, Dad! Let’s eat Dad!No one wants to eat their own father. But getting your dad to buy you dinner? Priceless (and hopefully expensive for him).But, alas, grammar is overlooked by so many. Take these submitted photos from the National Punctuation Day site:!
That dog sign KILLS me! Seriously. Apostrophe overdose.Another thing that gets me (and that’s one of my boss’s pet peeves) is “its” versus “it’s.”!
Exactly.And while I don’t have a hyphen problem, this is my favorite shirt of all time: ![][5]
And, for good measure, a little throwback on how kids learned punctuation in the ’70s. What are your grammar pet peeves? I know you’ve got ’em!