Grammar Geeks Unite on National Punctuation Day!

                                                     by Trina Boice                                             
                                                www.TrinaBoice.com 


Did you know that September 24th has officially been declared as a celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotation marks, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis?  Well, now you do, so let the party begin!#$?!  


Our words, both spoken and verbal, really affect our brand and how others perceive us.

The ninth annual National Punctuation Day®, the September 24 holiday that reminds America that a semicolon is not a surgical procedure, will celebrate the 2012 presidential election with a literary challenge — vote for your favorite Presidential Punctuation Mark in one, highly punctuated paragraph!

The rules: Write one paragraph with a maximum of three sentences using the following 13 punctuation marks to explain which should be “presidential,” and why: apostrophe, brackets, colon, comma, dash, ellipsis, exclamation point, hyphen, parentheses, period, question mark, quotation mark, and semicolon. You may use a punctuation mark more than once, and there is no word limit. Multiple entries are permitted.

In short, persuade them that your favorite punctuation mark should be the official punctuation mark of the President of the United States.  Contest entries must be received by September 30 to be considered for prizes. The winner(s) will receive a box of punctuation goodies, including a National Punctuation Day® T-shirt. Send entries, including name, address and phone number, to National Punctuation Day® headquarters at Jeff@NationalPunctuationDay.com.

In 2011, 220 entries in their paragraph contest were received from the United States, the Netherlands, Malta, Canada, England, and India.  In 2010, 356 people from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Italy (in Italian!) submitted more than 3,000 entries in our haiku contest, including 73 from a certain New York State employee who shall remain nameless.  

Have a great punctuation day!

A Chance to Win "Mormon Mishaps and Mischief"

By Cindy Beck

In case you missed Jillayne Clements' post last night, we’re holding a giveaway here at the Writing Fortress. For your edification, let me just tell you what we are not giving away—a llama, Gila monster or night on the town with Burl Ives (which you'd probably appreciate not winning, since he's passed on).

Most, or possibly all of the prizes are real, live, printed-on-the-page books by authors here at the blog.

Unfortunately, the printed-on-the-page book that co-author, Nichole Giles, and I have written (with stories compiled from other great authors as well) won’t be out until December, but we wanted to give our 90 million readers a chance to win it.

What? We don’t have 90 million readers? Okay … 89.9 million.



Our book, Mormon Mishaps and Mischief: Hilarious Stories for Saints, contains humorous, true stories of Latter-day Saints that will have you holding your sides and laughing. It covers everything from bloopers at the pulpit and gaffes at priesthood camp outs to blunders during family home evening. The book makes a great gift for yourself, family, friends, or even a Christmas gift for your home teachers—when they finally show up on December 31.

How do you win a copy of Mormon Mishaps and Mischief? Just leave a comment on this blog entry and we’ll throw you into the random generator … well, not actually throw you, but your name (which will be assigned a number) into the mix and pull a winner two weeks from now, when Nichole posts her thoughts here. That person will win a copy of the book and we’ll send it when Mormon Mishaps and Mischief comes out in December.

Best of luck to each of you!

~ Cindy and Nichole