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Apostrophe lets use it right period

Joye Brown
September 14, 2008

Grab a pencil. You're gonna need it.

You'll need a few of these, too: Commas, periods, apostrophes, an exclamation point and one hyphen.

Ready?

Let's go (and don't forget to add spaces).

Joye Brown Joye Brown Bio | E-mail | Recent columns

NationalPunctuationDays almosthereHurrah

ItsSept24actuallywhichis achangebecausefortwoyears itwasobservedinAugust

ButJeffRubintheforcebehind NationalPunctuationDay movedittwoyearsagosokids wouldbeinschooltocelebrate theoftabusedmarkingsthat spare usheadacheswhenweread

Had enough?

Three paragraphs make the point.

Punctuation matters.

Unless you like headaches; or an inner voice like some brain-deadening android, droning onandonandon.

Stop it.

That's what a period does.

Claim it.

That's a job for the properly placed apostrophe.

And a comma, at its best, is like a taste of lemon sherbet between courses, a pause that refreshes.

Too bad proper punctuation, like good grammar and spelling, is under assault.

Now, let's trade that pencil for a cell phone or anything else that snaps pictures.

You're invited to join a mission to help Long Island - for the first time ever - celebrate National Punctuation Day.

But we'll get back to that, later.

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