25 September 2010

On celebrating punctuation

For some reason I missed International Talk Like a Pirate Day (19 September) but there's a slightly more serious celebration today, albeit U.S.-based (is that punctuated correctly?). (Where should the question mark go? Was that final full stop necessary?) It's national Punctuation Day over there.

Which reminds me of the Apostrophe Protection Society, too. What is moot, of course, is whether the apostrophe should be protected. German, after all, has a similar genitive construction and gets along without it.

1 comment:

  1. I think it should be preserved. Although people seem to find the use of the apostrophe impossible to master, actually it is quite simple. Once you have cracked the code, you wonder why it is so mysterious to others. And if something is so simple, why not keep it? Just because the Germans get along fine without it is no reason to send the poor blameless apostrophe on its way to oblivion. I like it. I like its masterful authority: that's its beauty.

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