Comma Comma Comma Comma Comma Chameleon

Today is National Punctuation Day. I’m sure you’re all well aware of this as you have spent weeks signing punctuation cards, hanging commas from the mantle, and praying that the Punctuation Jackal excretes lots of semicolons into the tin bucket you left on the dining room table.

I kid. These days, people just leave the bucket in the kids’ room.

National Punctuation Day was started back in 2004 by a former copy editor (of course) named Jeff Rubin. You know it’s legit because he has a website. This gives it a lot more credibility than National Kick Butt Day (October 13) which is largely celebrated by beating the pudding out of all the panty-waists who celebrated National Bring Your Teddy Bear To Work & School Day (October 8).

It may confound some that one man deemed punctuation so important it became his raison d'etre. Though, we can’t all direct our energies to those noble labors of love like ending homelessness, or throwing telemarketers off a cliff. Perspective is a real kick in the pants that way. What some of us see as a world crisis, others call a molehill.

Count me among those who feel that knowledgeable and safe punctuation use is a worthy cause: I’m a huge fan of the serial comma; I prefer the British use of punctuation outside of quotes (if the punctuation is not part of the quote); I feel that the full colon needs to break free from the shackles of academic titles.

The exclamation point… [sigh]. It’s become a bit of a slut.

It is of note that the sibling of mine who made me aware of National Punctuation Day outright refuses to discern between an em dash (—) and a hyphen (-). She’s a kindred spirit in so many other ways, but that just sends me right up a wall. Yet, I don’t see this as some unforgivable transgression.

“Proper punctuation” is a term championed by the Buckley proselytes that want to exclude. This is such a pity. The guidelines of punctuation should not be used to lambaste someone for not knowing them. They are meant to bring harmony and understanding to the written word. What a disservice we are performing if we use these beautiful, little symbols to foster petty priggishness and division!

That said, there’s some shit that just ain’t right.

Last week, I used a boutique social networking service called Facebook to send a note to my 18-year-old nephew. I privately reveled in how cool I was. Rather than sending a fuddy-duddy old email, here I was using a slick trick to identify with the younger set.

The minute I read his response, my age came back like indigestion. I swear on The Elements of Style that the below is his unedited reply.

“i check both the same amount and most of them r from my school i email u back with my address”

While I am sure that using absolutely no punctuation at all saved him oodles of time, it took me about 20 minutes to read this and understand what it was saying. It may take you some time to realize, but there are three distinct thoughts in this word accident. They are separated by little more than sheer will.

Granted, this was colloquial, private communication. That’s why the lack of capitalization and the homophonic letter-words (“r”,”u”) don’t bother me at all. They don’t hinder comprehension. But the lack of any… kind of… dude! I mean, is there a period famine up at your school something?

All in all, my nephew is a really great guy. If his biggest problem in college is separating his ideas into multiple sentences, he’ll do a lot better than I did. Hell, if he shows up at class 50% of the time he’ll do a lot better than I did.

I digress.

Long ago I found myself on the wrong side of an argument with an editor over the use of a comma before "too" at the end of a sentence. I told him I didn't *feel* a comma there. He told me that there is a very clear and distinct rule regarding that comma placement and I was to follow it. I noted that I did not find this rule in our publication's manual of style, and that its worth as a rule in wider punctuation use was suspect. He then reminded me that he was a Senior Managing Editor, which reminded me that I was an Editorial Assistant. The comma stayed.

I'd like to say that I fought the good fight. I suggested a rewrite of the sentence, and of other sentences where this issue came up. I felt that, rather than one of us being right, the greater good was the clarity of articles in our magazine. Alas, they wanted a minion, not a mind. My feel-good, subjective punctuation stance was received like a nudist at a funeral. In the end, I was pushed out of my position; left to wander the streets in a whiskey-fueled dream carnival.

Alright... I actually lost my job because I was awful at filing and filling out check requests. I pretty much didn't do that part of the job because I hated it. But it's hard to position yourself as a Howard Roark figure when that's your story.

So tonight, as you gather around the Punctuation Fern and sing, just remember that National Punctuation Day is about understanding and communication. Thank someone when they suggest a better way for you to use punctuation. It’s meant to guide, not divide.

That said, this Jeff Rubin guy is apparently one of those people who takes a red pen to newspapers, “mails the corrections to the offending writer[,] and scribbles angry notes in column margins.” Yeah, so, some people aren’t on the whole peace, love, and understanding kick.