Did you know that today is National Punctuation Day?
Wondering why we should celebrate Punctuation Day? Without punctuation, you would see a sentence like this: Let’s eat Grandma Sarah said. I don’t think we want to eat Grandma. I think we’re inviting Grandma to eat. This would be conveyed if we added punctuation to the sentence: “Let’s eat, Grandma,” Sarah said.
Pet Peeve
I wrote about my pet peeve regarding punctuation in a post entitled The Ubiquitous and Elusive Apostrophe. To ensure readers understood the title, I wrote:
How can the apostrophe be both ubiquitous (everywhere) and elusive (hard to find)? The apostrophe, if not exactly ubiquitous, certainly shows up in many places it doesn’t belong. At the same time it is frequently missing from places it does belong.
Another punctuation mark writers seem to have problems using correctly is the comma. A very successful author who has written many books and is published by a major publishing house, says she doesn’t know where she should put commas. She sends her manuscript and page full of commas to her editor. She attaches a note: “I don’t know where these go, but I’m sure you do. Just put wherever they belong.”
The author may have been telling a tall tale to newbie writers. However, it could possibly be true at the time she started writing, several decades ago. Writers could develop a relationship with an editor, and there were more editors working the industry then. Today it’s much harder to get published by a major New York house–but indie publishing is coming its own, and writers can be successful if they self-publish and promote their books. While indie writers must hire editors for their work, major publishing companies have reduced the amount of editing a book receives.
Today gives us an opportunity to pay a little more attention to punctuation. Read some sentences without punctuation and realize how important it is.
Missing Comma Cost Company $5 Million
In 2018 truck drivers for a dairy sued their employer for $5 million dollars in overtime pay. The company claimed that the drivers were exempt from overtime pay because of the labor law of Maine. However, there was a missing Oxford (or serial) comma (the comma before the conjunction before the last item in a list).
If the comma isn’t there, the sentence can become confusing. For example, “The people I love most are my parents, my wife and my cousins.” Huh? Are your wife and your cousins your parents? Adding the Oxford comma, the sentence is clearer: “The people I love most are my parents, my wife, and my cousins.”
The missing comma resulted in a $5 million win for the drivers and loss for the company.
What’s your favorite punctuation mark? Which one is the hardest for you to use correctly?
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