On September 24, it was National Punctuation Day! I intended to post about it on the day of but I have gotten very off track this week with my entire life so here we are a couple days late. My love of punctuation knows no bounds, though, so really I could be celebrating this holiday any day of the year! National Punctuation Day was founded in 2004 as a day to celebrate the correct usage of punctuation. It was founded by Jeff Rubin.

If you’ve been here for any length of time, you could probably guess that my favorite punctuation mark is the exclamation! I usually have to edit all of my posts to remove an exclamation or two so that I don’t look crazily enthusiastic. I still might but I promise I try! 😬

One thing that I’ve found really fascinating is that authors also have favorite punctuation marks, and I can usually tell within the first 10% of a manuscript what it is. One of my authors is a huge fan of the em dash, and another prefers the semi-colon. One loves a serial (Oxford) comma, and one truly can’t stand commas. I love reading people’s words for so many reasons, and figuring out their favorite piece of punctuation is just the icing on the cake. 🎂 

Some fun ways to celebrate National Punctuation Day would be:

✍🏻Play a punctuation game! Merriam-Webster has a fun punctuation quiz!

🔍 Pick up a book or magazine and pay special attention to the punctuation. Can you spot any errors?

🍋 Try swapping a commonly used punctuation mark with a less common one. Texting with a friend? Swap your commas for em dashes and see how your friend reacts. Does it change the meaning of your message?

That’s all for today! Feel free to comment your favorite punctuation mark or even shoot me a note. I’d love to hear from you!

Until next time!

XOXO,

Sam Speed Edits