If you are a word nerd and grammar geek, you probably notice signs in grocery stores that say apple’s instead of apples and cringe at misspellings and improper punctuation. So you may already know about and celebrate National Punctuation Day, which this year is September 30.
Last year, the creator of this widely celebrated national holiday (what? it isn’t?), Jeff Rubin, invited people to come up with haikus celebrating punctuation, and 3,000 of us did so. (Mine is here.)
This year, your task is to come up with one paragraph, maximum three sentences. It must use these 13 punctuation marks: apostrophe, brackets, colon, comma, dash, ellipsis, exclamation point, hyphen, parentheses, period, question mark, quotation mark and semicolon.
Are you up for the challenge? Submit your entry by Sept. 30 to Jeff@NationalPunctuationDay.com.
P.S. Check out the funny Grammar Vandal blog, where Kate McCulley posts signs and other items that get it wrong.
Image credit: “Idea Go” at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.