by Sue Horner | Mar 3, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
During such a troubling time in the world, it may seem wrong to be talking about grammar. Yet the pandemic, the anti-vaccine protestors and now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have clearly showed the importance of words and how they are presented. Also, maybe you...
by Sue Horner | Mar 4, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Hold onto your dictionaries; it’s National Grammar Day! You can thank Martha Brockenbrough and the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG) for this “glorious” day (haha). She founded SPOGG in 2008 “for people appalled by bad grammar in public...
by Sue Horner | Nov 30, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
With December on the doorstep, we can look forward to lots of apostrophe abuse. You know what I’m talking about. Where a simple “S” is required to indicate more than one item, an apostrophe is thrown in the mix. Retailers are going to offer...
by Sue Horner | Sep 21, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
“[P]unctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop.” – Lynne Truss, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves It’s almost National Punctuation Day (Sept. 24), that “celebration of the lowly comma, correctly...
by Sue Horner | Sep 11, 2012 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
National Punctuation Day is fast approaching; do you have your assignment yet? What, you haven’t been eagerly awaiting Sept. 24? That is the day when Jeff Rubin reminds us that “a semicolon is not a surgical procedure,” and urges us to freely toss...
by Sue Horner | Dec 22, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
You’ve gotta love the intent behind the message, while regretting the lack of proofreader. < A message in my in-box today.
by Sue Horner | Dec 5, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
No doubt you breathlessly awaited the results of the contest that marked the 2011 National Punctuation Day (Sept. 24) — the day for drawing attention to America’s lapsed grammar skills. Well, wait no longer! NPD founder Jeff Rubin announced the select few...
by Sue Horner | Aug 17, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
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...
by Sue Horner | Jun 6, 2011 | Most popular posts, The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Please tell my client that five exclamation points (or exclamation marks, if you prefer) in six sentences is too many. Last week I edited an annual report written by a non-profit group. Knowing the group wanted “donor-centric” copy, I deliberately left...
by Sue Horner | Sep 24, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
What makes me crazy Are apostrophes in signs. Know the one’s I mean? That is my haiku in honour of National Punctuation Day, September 24. (OK, I know an apostrophe is not punctuation, so it’s more of a haiku in honour of general grammatical attention to detail,...
