Time 2 talk later?? B by 10!! Can talk after!! What next??? Thot she on board!!!
That was a text I received from a former colleague notorious for her speed texting. Some messages took a bit of time to discern. She was trying to tell me we needed to talk about a situation that was changing from what we had first thought. What also made her texts challenging was how she used punctuation. Or, should I say, overused punctuation.
In the absence of being able to use tone and inflection, it鈥檚 sometimes hard to communicate surprise, excitement or frustration when dealing with the written word. In its place people are tempted to use multiple punctuation marks. This is regrettable.
The misuse of punctuation certainly isn鈥檛 new, but it bothered an American man to such an extent that in 2004 he created National Punctuation Day to draw attention to the problem. Jeff Rubin set September 24 as the day to remind people that without proper punctuation marks, 鈥渕eaning would be lost or up for interpretation.鈥�
It鈥檚 true. If something as simple as a comma isn鈥檛 used correctly鈥攐r at all鈥攖he results shape sentences differently than intended. A magazine cover featuring a picture of a popular cooking show personality contained the headline: Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog. A couple of well-placed commas would have made all the difference.
Then there鈥檚 the fast food outlet that should have used a period to separate these ideas: SpongeBob Is Here Hiring Managers. Or the hotel that had the same problem when it featured a billboard stating: We Remember All Who Have Served Hot Breakfast. Look again at the title of this column. It was intended to advertise a deal for seniors at a carwash, but for lack of punctuation became the jumping off point for a lot of jokes.
But the absolute worst must be the medical report detailing a list of symptoms including: Unable To Eat Diarrhea. Oh, how desperately that period was needed after the word eat.
Punctuation marks come and go over time, notably the interrobang, which was in common use about 60 years ago and has experienced quite the revival over the last decade. The combination question mark and exclamation point is used to express a mixture of confusion and shock. It was almost called the quesclamation until an advertising executive settled on interrobang. It was used so often typewriter manufacturer Remington gave it its own key on their typewriters. The resurgence in the last number of years of this divisive punctuation mark is indication to some that language is dynamic, but bemoaned by others who say its overuse on social media has rendered it meaningless.
We鈥檙e getting worse at dealing with punctuation most likely because we鈥檙e getting lazy. We don鈥檛 seem to be making the effort to ensure we use correct sentence structure, grammar or punctuation. But without care and attention to the most basic building blocks of the written language we are vulnerable to losing the proper communication of ideas. Sometimes it has humorous results, but other times the outcome is simply sad because we aren鈥檛 giving enough attention to how we value the unspoken word.
I am grateful (now) to Mrs. Kolb and Mrs. Hanlon, two teachers who were something of taskmasters when it came to using proper punctuation. Nothing got past their eagle eyes or red pens. While it might have seemed tedious at the time, there are entire classrooms of people who can absolutely say they benefited from their efforts to help us treat the written word well. What we choose to do with that today is entirely in our hands.
It we don鈥檛 take the time to communicate our ideas in a way they can be properly understood, we risk losing our ability to communicate them at all. It may take more effort to ensure everything is in its proper place, but the time spent is well worth it. Maybe we can avoid more signs like the one on the fence that reads: Cows please close gate. That鈥檚 my outlook.
