Fun Holiday – Punctuation Day

Punctuation Day is the brainchild of the American professional speaker Jeff Rubin who launched it in 2004, and is also known as National Punctuation Day in the United States. The unofficial holiday aims to spread awareness and educate people on proper punctuation and the virtues of using the appropriate punctuation in any kind of writing.

Punctuation Conveys Meaning

Punctuation is the use of typographical signs, spaces and other mutually agreed upon symbols in a language that help the understanding of written text. The main purpose of punctuation is to convey the correct meaning and intent of the text.

Every language has its own punctuation rules and symbols - what conveys one message in one language can convey another in a different language. For instance, in Greek, the semicolon (;) is used to indicate a question, while in English, it is used to connect two sentences that are close in meaning; or to separate elements in a series, where the series has a comma; and to connect two related sentences.

How to Celebrate?

• Learn more about punctuation and the appropriate ways of using them.
• If you do any type of writing in your job, spend some time going through your work and make sure your writing has all the appropriate punctuation.

Did You Know…

…that the hashtag or pound sign (#) is also formally known as the octothorpe?