I swear I’m not making these up. Today is National Punctuation Day. Here’s a couple of my favorite stories showing the importance of punctuation:

Woman Without Man

A professor wrote the following sentence on the board and asked his class to punctuate it:

Woman without her man is nothing.

Half of the class punctuated the sentence in the following way:

Woman: without her, man is nothing.

The other half of the class responded with the following:

Woman, without her man, is nothing.

Care to guess which came from the men and which came from the women?

Dear John

Here’s an example letter showing two drastically different messages using the exact same words, just different punctuation. First, we have a loving note:

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy–will you let me be yours?

Jane

Now we’ll take the same words and change up the punctuation:

Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours,

Jane

What are some of your favorite punctuation mishaps?

Do you find yourself wishing for a hearty “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum”? Do you ever wonder what it is to worry about “land legs” or “sea legs”. Do you have an odd obsession with the letter “R”?

If you can answer yes to any of those, then today is your day: International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here are some fun resources to help educate the uninitiated:

• Talk Like a Pirate Day – Official Home Page
• Talk Like a Pirate Day on Facebook
• The Official Wench on YouTube
• Wikipedia entry (because, you know, Wiki has everything)
• Translate web pages to Pirate