Friday, September 24, 2010

Betty, She's So Hot Right Now

Happy Punctuation Day, Everyone!

In honor of this special day, I would like to present each punctuation mark with an award to show how much I appreciate them for what they do for our sentences:

To the comma, I am honored to present the illustrious Betty White Award.

Like Betty White, the comma is everywhere. You can nary turn on the TV without seeing Betty White, nor can you read a paragraph without seeing a comma. Although its range is impressive, the comma is most commonly known for separating items in a series, following introductory phrases, and setting off extra information.

The period gets the Fat Lady Sings Award.

When you see the period, my friends, that sentence is over.

Semi-colon, you get the Superman award.

The semi-colon is strong enough to hold together two complete sentences. That’s one thing you cannot say about a comma.

The dash receives one of my personal favorites: the Shot of Tequila Award.

Both add a little pizzazz to the occasion.

The exclamation point receives the notorious Tila Tequila Award.

Tila Tequila faked a pregnancy!
Tila Tequila tweeted that Rhianna has herpes!
Tila Tequila called the police on Nikky Hilton!

The question mark receives the '80s Appreciation Award.

The '80s wouldn't have been the '80s without this famous question:

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?

Colon, you receive the Drum Roll Award.

When we see you, we know you are making some sort of announcement.

The apostrophe wins the Wedding Ring Award.

It shows possession.

The hyphen wins The Cupid Award.

Like Cupid’s arrow does to people, the hyphen brings two words together as one. Aaaaaah!

Parenthesis receive the Post Script Award.

The information provided within is not essential to the meaning of the sentence, but it's nice to know.

The ellipsis and brackets worked hard together this year to receive the The Yin Yang award.

The ellipsis taketh away words in a quote; the brackets giveth. Together they achieve perfect harmony.

The quotation marks win the highly coveted That’s What She Said Award.

Literally.

Thank you once again, Punctuation Marks, for the great work you have done this year. In return, I will do my best to make sure my students stop neglecting and abusing you. If I can do that, I should receive the Miracle Worker Award.

16 comments:

Carolyn Abiad said...

Happy Punctuation Day!

Bethany Elizabeth said...

:) Very nice, I laughed my way through this!

Tere Kirkland said...

Perfect! Those were some very appropriately named awards.

Happy Punctuation Day!

Carolina M. Valdez Schneider said...

You need to write a book. That was hilarious. I've never seen anyone make this stuff so funny.

WalksLikeAnEgyptian said...

This post was great, Jenny!!

Surely, you'll get the Oh Captain, My Captain Award!

And your blog gets the I Can't Believe it's not Butter Award. You'd never know it was (relatively) good for you!

The Invisible Seductress said...

I loved this post!!!! (I love all of yours) but this one was special!!!!

Hannah said...

LOL! Congratulations to all the winners!! You do your best at creating wonderful sentences and paragraphs.

Anonymous said...

LOL! Great! My 5 year olds class sings a song in the tune of the Supremes' "Stop in the Name of Love" it goes "Stop in the name of the period, before it becomes a run on sentence, think it ow ow ver think it ow ow ver"

Julie Musil said...

Oh my gosh, this is so funny. My favorites are the Tila Tequila awards! And another exclamation point, just for fun!!

Meg O. said...

Yeah! I, truly, love these well-named awards (especially the Tila Tequila one)! Why are you so... awesome? You're my hero. Grammar: it's hot.

(SEE? I can use all of punctuation marks in one comment! OMG!)

Anonymous said...

Girl, you are 2 MUCH! Great job. You make learning inviting and exciting!

Theresa Milstein said...

Tequila award is just great. Cupid award is clever. The post script award - I'm a big fan of using that one! Betty White was an amazing host.

Maria said...

Very funny. You always find a way to surprise me. You're great!!

kathryn said...

Oh, God...how long did it take you to think all these up?

Beautifully executed and perfect in every way!

(I just wish I didn't have to think so hard before I hit "post comment"...I'm worried I've made a grammatical error.)

Hart Johnson said...

Oh, this was fabulous! I loved it--and you got them all just right! (I love Betty!)

Mary Aalgaard said...

Happy belated Punctuation Day! How did you celebrate? I'd give you the Miracle Worker award. Cheers!