Today is National Punctuation Day (!!!)
It’s a day to pay homage to the commas, periods, and apostrophes in our lives — the casualties of our 140-character world.
Remember when the word “don’t’’ had an apostrophe? And when commas divided sentences? Or when questions ended with actual question marks?
Today is National Punctuation Day. It’s a day to pay homage to the commas, periods, and apostrophes in our lives — the casualties of our 140-character world.
A recent study from American University revealed that only 39 percent of college students punctuate the end of texts and 45 percent punctuate the end of instant messages.
What’s more, the rules of punctuation have been twisted and tossed out completely now that tweets limit us to 140 characters and Facebook serves as our digital diary. Exclamation points are multiplied. The asterisk indicates actions like a *cough* and a *raised hand,* and the comma, that strong and steady separator of thoughts, has been dismissed as stuffy and dropped altogether.
Time to panic?
Matt Davis, a professor of English at UMass Boston, is not worried about it. He pointed to the famous 1975 Newsweek story, “Why Johnny Can’t Write,’’ as evidence that these cultural worries are cyclical.
“Every generation says kids can’t write, can’t do this, can’t do that, when their parents basically said the same thing,’’ said Davis. “Punctuation serves as a pretty good anchor for this anxiety because of the changes that have happened in texting and social media.’’
Other English professors are equally unperturbed.
“I personally don’t feel particularly rankled by this,’’ said Neal Lerner, an English professor at Northeastern University, who’s been teaching for more than 25 years. “Read an Emily Dickinson poem and you’ll see how she does the same thing. I love that idea of a writer using what resources are available and repurposing what’s available in different ways.’’
The poems of Emily Dickinson.
According to The New York Times piece, “When Your Punctuation Says It All (!),’’ published earlier this year, a “micro-punctuation’’ has emerged in which punctuation marks “tell us more about the person on the other end than the words themselves.’’
For example, when Times writer Jessica Barrett’s friend texted her about dinner plans, asking “what time’’ they were meeting, the lack of punctuation left a sour taste in the writer’s mouth. They’d been organizing the outing for weeks and the missing question mark made the interaction seem indifferent and cold, she wrote.
Mignon Fogarty, author of the NYT best-selling book “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing,’’ agrees that digital punctuation is routinely used to convey tone and attitude.
For example:
Looking forward to it!
vs.
Looking forward to it
“Exclamation points to show friendliness or excitement has become so common that when they aren’t included, people wonder whether the writer is angry or not looking forward to lunch,’’ said Fogarty in an email to Boston.com. “When ‘Looking forward to it!’ becomes the norm, ‘Looking forward to it’ can seem passive aggressive or snarky.’’
Another example:
Be on time
vs.
Be. On. Time.
The latter sounds more emphatic, said Fogarty. Or angry, judging from Ben Crair’s New Republic article , “The Period is Pissed,’’ which discusses how the period has become so aggressive.
“Punctuation has been changing ever since rudimentary forms were first introduced by the scholars at the Library of Alexandria, and it will continue to change,’’ said Fogarty, whose Twitter account @GrammarGirl has nearly 270,000 followers. “Changes in the way people use punctuation show that people are adaptable, and that is a good sign for the future.’’
Language experts share punctuation pet peeves:
The experts may not be worried, but they certainly have pet peeves. After all, the written language is their life’s work.
“The only thing that bothers me is when people don’t use periods between sentences,’’ said Fogarty. “Because it makes everything hard to read.’’
“I have to admit, when I see someone post something and there’s no punctuation, I have to work far too hard as a reader to understand what they’re saying,’’ said Lerner. “I will spend a lot less time and energy caring. The writer suffers the consequences.’’
Jeff Scheible, author of Digital Shift: The Cultural Logic of Punctuation’’ and a cinema studies professor at Purchase College, a State University of New York, has studied how punctuation has influenced our culture.
“That’s my pet peeve, when people don’t know their audience,’’ said Scheible, who added, “Lots of emails from students sound and look like text messages.’’
While he may let it slide in an email, he’s less likely to do so in a paper (and yes, that has happened), he said.
However, we shouldn’t judge a texter by his text, these experts say.
Davis provided this example of a student text:
Hey prof cant make it to class today nate
Is no-apostrophe Nate the laziest student on Earth?
“It’s important that I don’t say Nate is lazy,’’ said Davis. “When, in fact, Nate may be in a hurry. If Nate is on his way to the emergency room and there’s no punctuation, it’s sort of obnoxious for me to say, ‘You forgot your comma.’’’
Language and punctuation may be evolving, but students like Nate shouldn’t worry.
“We might be going to hell in a handbasket, but it won’t be for punctuation,’’ said Davis. “I would be much happier, for instance, if we all took seriously and reacted to climate change. That’s not to say I don’t think language use is serious or matters. But we don’t have much good reason to connect language use and moral decline. I think that’s a mistake.’’
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