National Punctuation Day – September 24, 2022, history significance why we celebrate
From the lowly comma to the flamboyant ampersand, National Punctuation Day on September 24 celebrates the punctuation that makes our words legible and gets our point across. “Let’s eat, Grandma!” or “Let’s eat Grandma!” — it’s clear that punctuation saves lives. Though you might not have consciously considered punctuation since elementary school, you likely use it every day. Every year, the creator of the holiday sets a punctuation challenge, and punctuation quizzes and games can be found all over the country.
History of National Punctuation Day
National Punctuation Day was founded by the American professional speaker Jeff Rubin in the year 2004. He was also the organizer of the website www.nationalpunctuationday.com.
The day is celebrated to bring awareness and educate people about the fundamental role of punctuation and the necessity of using the correct punctuation. Rubin is notably encouraging the appreciators of correct punctuation and spelling by sending in pictures of errors that can be spotted in everyday life.
Punctuations or points are usually the correct usages of spaces, conventional signs, and certain typographical symbols like period, comma, semicolon, question mark, exclamation point, brackets, and so on. Punctuations are not only a key point in writing, but it is also an important thing to better understand the meaning during reading, includes both silently and aloud, handwritten and printed texts.
Every language has its punctuation rules and symbols. i.e., punctuations in one language can convey another meaning in a different language. One might feel a bit of hardness while knowing about the punctuations, but it is indeed playing a vital role in conveying what you mean.
When punctuations are not used in the right place, then it will make an error as you would have mentioned in one meaning and the other person will take it in another sense possible. Punctuations are historically an aid to reading aloud. Without punctuations, there will be no clarity of meaning in whatever you convey.
Punctuation Day will remind your school days where you have learned about them from the scrap. For instance, “What a beautiful day it is! ” is an exclamatory sentence where you can’t use an interrogative question mark. If you use a question mark, then the sentence will be “What a beautiful day it is?” which doesn’t give you the right meaning. So one must learn to use the proper punctuation at the right time to make others understand what you are intended to tell.
NATIONAL PUNCTUATION DAY TIMELINE
900 B.C.
First Document with Punctuation
Since many of the languages that came before this document did not require spacing or punctuation and were predominantly verbal, the earliest known document with punctuation is the Mesha Stele.
200 B.C.
Greeks Use Punctuation
Though they had previously written in ‘scriptura continua,’ the Greeks begin to adopt Aristophanes of Byzantium’s system of a single punctuation dot to mark speeches.
400–800 A.D.
The Bible and Punctuation
As the Bible begins to be mass-produced, punctuation is popularized along with it.
1400s
Printing Begins
Venetian printers Aldus Manutius and Sons are credited with popularizing many forms of punctuation we still use today.
1970s
Computer Languages
With the rise of computers, online chatting, and programming, punctuation meanings and standards begin fluctuating rapidly in the late 20th century and into the 21st century.
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How to Celebrate National Punctuation Day
There are many best ways with which you could usefully celebrate National Punctuation Day. Firstly learn about the punctuations and where each of them should be used. Check your writing work if you have used the right punctuations once after you have completed it.
Start using punctuation while you text others through mobile and computer. You can participate in the event conducted by the founder of this day from his website to improve your grammatical knowledge. Post and share your National Punctuation Day celebrations on social media using the hashtags #NationalPunctuationDay or #PunctuationDay.
5 FUN FACTS ABOUT PUNCTUATION
A question mark was… a word?
While today we end literary queries with a simple symbol, ‘?,’ those who used Latin would write out the word ‘questio’ to indicate the end of a question
Do you know what ‘#’ is called?
You might have said ‘pound’ or ‘hashtag’ (maybe depending on your generation) — little did we know, its official name is an ‘octothorpe’!
Punctuation hasn’t always existed
In early writing, text was just long strings of characters, unbroken by spaces or punctuation.
There was an ampersand-inclusive alphabet
Coming in hot after the letter ‘z’, the ampersand was stated in the alphabet as ‘z and per se and’ — it was through years of lazy pronunciation that ‘and per se and’ became what we know today — ampersand.
‘@’ doesn’t mean ‘at’ everywhere
While we might call this an ‘at mark’ or simply an ‘at,’ across the globe this name varies wildly — in Israel, you might call it a ‘strudel’ and in Russia, it’s a ‘little dog’!
