As a retired English teacher, I would be remiss if I didn’t inform you that coming up on the 24th of September is National Punctuation Day. I sense that some of you are now fleeing to the sports page, but those who stay with me will be richly rewarded.
As you’re a newspaper reader, I don’t have to explain the importance of punctuation and its correct usage, but right in this sentence alone are two words that are often mis-punctuated. If you can guess what they are, you will win a prize!
In case you are wondering if I’m deranged, I assure you I am not alone. First of all, National Punctuation Day has an official website and annual student contests. Last year’s winners took home prizes of a book, a pen, a ruler, a bookmark and — drum roll, please — a question mark-shaped stress ball, because, clearly, punctuation stresses us out. Of 150 entries, kudos to the four students who won the contest. Ho‘omaika‘i!
In addition to NPD, there’s a self-styled “Apostrophe Vigilante” who goes around the city of Bristol in the United Kingdom, correcting misplaced apostrophes on street signs. He told the police that what he’s doing is not against the law, because the real crime is putting apostrophes where they don’t belong.
While it’s true that erroneous marks can cause confusion, it is possible the Vigilante crosses a punctuation portal. But I agree with our British maniac-on-a-mission that the greatest offender is the errant apostrophe. Carry on, sir!
If you’re still with me, then perhaps you are quite confident in your punctuation prowess, so how about humoring this old schoolmarm and taking a short quiz by writing a sentence with each word below:
A) it’s and its;
B) you’re and your;
C) there’s and theirs;
D) dog’s, dogs and dogs’.
Email me your homework, and if your sentences are correct, there will be a reward, which you can find out about at the end of this column.
English has some baroque punctuation marks, among them the ellipsis, parentheses, brackets, quotation marks, the colon, the slash, along with the common comma, period, exclamation point and question mark.
Personally, I love the elegant semi-colon and confess to a certain smugness when using it, but my daughter — a professor — tells me that her students must feel as I do, because they throw it haphazardly and incorrectly around in their papers, perhaps in hopes of impressing the teacher.
Then she challenges me. “Surely, Mom, you aren’t using the semi-colon to show off to your readers, are you?”
I snort at her accusation; would I do that?
The NPD website advises us to celebrate the Sept. 24 by circling all the punctuation errors in the newspaper (Whaaat?). Then take a walk around town looking for signs with incorrect punctuation, and go in to inform the owner. If s/he is not there, write them a note.
I love it when people are passionate about their cause, but perhaps the founder of National Punctuation Day shouldn’t come to Hawaii to correct signage, because he might get hustled back to the airport and thrown on the next plane out. In these islands, we have bigger fish to fry.
When I’m in Kona and see the road sign Hina-Lani, surely I’m not the only one wondering why that hyphen is there. And punctuation is the least of worries with Lei’s Sold Here. I’ll let you deal with that offending apostrophe, but adding the English plural “s” to a Hawaiian word? (Shudder).
Then on a sign at a popular beach, there’s La’aloa instead of La‘aloa, auwe an apostrophe where the ‘okina should be.
I could go on, but I think you had enough.
If you’ve made it this far, I salute you. But if this riff on punctuation is more than you can handle, take heart because Sept. 24 is also Cherries Jubilee Day!
For those who send in correct sentences, you will be deputized as a member of good standing in the PPP, the Pupule Punctuation Posse. But when you advise store owners about their incorrect signs, please leave me out of it.
Rochelle delaCruz was born in Hilo, graduated from Hilo High School, then left to go to college. After teaching for 30 years in Seattle, Wash., she retired and returned home to Hawaii. Rochelle welcomes your comments at rainysideview@gmail.com. Her column appears the second and fourth Monday of each month.
