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Every September 24 is National Punctuation Day in the U.S. and though it is not exactly one of the most popular holidays in the calendar, we want to acknowledge how important punctuation is for communication. Indeed, it can completely change the sense or intend of texts. Besides, a bad grammar can affect your reputation or the brand’s reputation.
If you think about it, we all have to write almost every day. Even if you are not a writer in the traditional sense, any type of work requires us to write emails to clients, colleagues and even when instant communication doesn’t pay much attention to punctuation, the relevance of it cannot be unseen. So, to celebrate this holiday properly, here are some interesting facts about National Punctuation Day and punctuation in general:
1. The holiday started thanks to a former reporter
This holiday owns its existence to Jeff Rubin, a former reporter who grew increasingly frustrated as he spotted errors in the newspaper.
In 2004, he secured a listing for the day in the “Chase’s Calendar of Events” reference book. That’s how National Punctuation Day was born. Rubin wanted to help educators remind students that punctuation still matters, even in an age of shorts texts, rapid tweets and text messages.
2. Languages didn’t always have punctuation
As long as languages were oral, denoting meaning depended only in visual gestures and voice intonations so not even the concept of punctuation existed. However, with the birth of printing and impersonal communication, the author wouldn’t always be around to explain the intend and dispel ambiguity. This need for avoiding any miscommunication resulted in the creation of punctuation.
3. A question mark used to be a word
In Latin, a word was used to explain a text was a query. In fact, people would finish the text with the word “question”. Later, they abbreviated it to “qo.”
People would put the abbreviation in a single space with the lowercase Q on top of the lowercase O. As time went on, people made the Q a tailed loop and the O a dot to save time.
4. The exclamation sign was also a word
Just like the question mark, the exclamation point comes from a Latin word. In Latin, people would use “io” to denote an exclamation of joy. It was wrote vertically within once space as a lowercase I over a lowercase O. Later, the O was relegated to a dot.
5. The “At Mark” has funny names around the world
Though shorthand use of the @ dates back to the 16th century, English speakers had some trouble settling on a name (today we call it the at mark). Meanwhile, the symbol got funny names around the world. In the Netherlands, it’s called monkey’s tail, in Israel, it’s a strudel, for Russians it’s “the little dog,” for Italians it’s the “small snail” and in Bosnia it’s simply the “crazy a.” Have you ever heard funnier names for a symbol?