National Punctuation Day

Happy National Punctuation Day!  Yes, it's actually National Punctuation Day.  And it's nighttime...on a Friday...and I just figured this all out... and decided to write about it because I've been hella sick and can't do anything fun other than talk about punctuation.  Hooray!

National Punctuation Day is apparently a big thing.  It's so big, it has its own website and an official meatloaf recipe.  Amazeballs.

It's an interrogative meatloaf!

In addition to meatloaves and websites, the National Punctuation Day sponsors this rap that teaches you about the proper use of punctuation.

Punctuation Rap

PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION

I am a QUESTION MARK, what do I do?
I’m at the end of questions, like Where? What? or Who?

PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION

I am a PERIOD, that means full stop,
At the end of a sentence, just make a dot.

PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION

I am a COMMA, if you see me just pause,
So hang back, Jack, and think of what was.

PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION

QUOTATION MARKS hold the talking within,
So if somebody speaks, just look for the twins.

PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION

I am a COLON, I am two dots,
I’m the introducer, I express your thoughts.

PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION

An EXCLAMATION POINT is so like “wow,”
If you’re writin’ so excitin’ then put me in now!

PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION

The APOSTROPHE . . . it shows possession,
Team up with an “s” . . . that’s my obsession.

PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
PUNK, PUNK, PUNCTUATION
© 2006 Jeff Rubin   National Punctuation Day®

However, no one wants to read a rap, so perhaps you would instead prefer to listen to LadiesLoveCoolJames busting out a hot jam of knowhow on punctuation on the Electric Company reboot:

Is it me, or did LL Cool J have some work done? 

Mama said you freaking her out with that constantly surprised expression, son.

Punctuation is good.  It helps English make sense.  In that respect, I respect it.

My most favoritist kind of punctuation is the interrobang ?! It's mostly awesome because:
1) It's an interrogative exclamation that just screams WTF better than WTF could ever do,
2) If you have synethesia, the word itself sounds like an onomatopoeia of the way the characters look, and...
3) It sounds dirty.  That's what happens when a question mark and an exclamation point get together.  They interrobang.  Wah wah wah.

And now - also in celebration of National Punctuation Day - some random trivia.

Quick, name this symbol:

#

Depending on where you're from, it goes by a number of names and means a number of different things.  Typically referred to as the pound sign, pound key, number sign, or hash, in most English-speaking countries it denotes a number, a sharp (in music), or unicode.  Other names include the mesh, crosshatch, crunch, gridlet, fence, hex, square, tic-tac-toe sign, and - most interestingly - the octothorpe.

Yes, the octothorpe.   Octo, for its eight widdle appendages, Thorpe, for... an Olympic medalist?

Maybe.

While the etymology of the word is so disputed that it didn't end up in the Oxford English Dictionary (until the 3rd edition), rumor has it that it was a 1960s creation of Bell Labs engineer (of Bell Telephony Systems fame) Don Macpherson.

Mr. Macpherson was something of an Olympics fan, particularly a fan of the (then) late Jim Thorpe, an athlete in the 1912 Olympics.  I know, you're saying, "What? 1912? And then...1960 he coined this phrase?"  Yeah... Well, here's where things get a little complicated.

Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe neé Wa-Tho-Huk was a half-causcasian, half-Sauk Native American oft described as one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century.

And handsome to boot.  Just look at them calves!

After winning eight of fifteen individual events in pentathlon and decathlon, he was disqualified because he was found to have been accepting money for playing baseball three years prior to the Olympics in Sweden.  In 1913, the IOC had strict rules about amateurism; meaning, "Athletes who received money prizes for competitions, who were sports teachers, or who had competed previously against professionals, were not considered amateurs and were not allowed to compete". So they stripped him of his medals.


So old Mr. Macpherson of Bell Labs was apparently party to a group trying to get those medals posthumously returned to Thorpe. While instructing the Mayo Clinic in the use of a new telephone system, he devised a newfangled name for the # sign on the keypad: the Octothorpe. 

The name never really took.  Thorpe; however, was posthumously re-awarded his medals in 1983, 30 years after his death.

Other etymologies suggest that it may come from maps, as in cartography the symbol for a village is #, and the Old Norse word for village: Thorp.  But that's not nearly as interesting a story.

Word of the Moment: Vexillology

If there is a thing and it exists, tangibly or even in theory, there is probably a study of it. The other day I grew curious about the study of flags after watching a documentary on Apartheid. While the Apartheid has little to do with the study of flags, I remembered that post-Apartheid South Africa stressed the importance of developing a flag that demonstrated the nation of disparate peoples (with a history of monstrous segregation) was now united. Anyway, all this led me to realize I didn't know the term for the study of flags.  So I looked it up, and there was this cool word: vexillology.

It comes from the Latin vexillum (obviously: "flag") but it's interesting that it came from a particular kind of flag of Roman times actually called the vexillum.  Vexillology is a serious study of flags.  It takes into account both the study and design of flags (vexillologist and vexillographer respectfully). They think about what certain shapes, colors, images, icons, angles mean to the country in both a historical and cultural context. They know forms and functions.  They even have their own pictographic code language  to describe the flag's usage, hoist, past, and other minutiae. They have a society, and, like most societies that are pompously named, they pompously named first in French. The Fédération Internationale des Associations Vexillologiques (FIAV) also go by English, German, and Spanish names, but the German word for "association" begins with a "G", so that totes screws up the acronym and makes them seem less official or something.  You can check them out here.

Maybe I should take up vexillology; flags are cool. I like how the colors and symbols and arrangements represent the ideals and history of the countries they stand for. If I had to pick favorites, I would go with South Africa, the careful thought that was put into creating such a beautiful composition (complete with awesomely named colors like "spectrum green" and "chili red") makes me happy inside. 

Bhutan's flag is pretty dope as well, as it's the only flag in modern times with a dragon on it.  The dragon's name is Druk, the Thunder Dragon of Bhutanese mythology, and he's apparently holding jewels that represent wealth (but I like to think they are apples or persimmons because that boy looks damn hungry).