24 全国标点日 National Punctuation Day

National Punctuation Day is a very important holiday for teachers and students of English. In fact, anyone who writes in English should celebrate this day. Few of us feel we are experts at the small marks that make up the English punctuation system. The day was founded in 2004 by Jeff Rubin, a former journalist. He wanted to draw attention to the importance of proper punctuation and to promote good writing skills. He said: “Successful people have good communication skills, and that includes knowing how to write properly.” He added: “I’m stunned at how many executives and CEOs send me articles and correspondence that are poorly written and punctuated…Magazines and newspapers routinely make punctuation errors.”

Punctuation is everything in a written language except the actual letters or numbers. Punctuation marks and other things like spaces and indents help the reader understand the structure and organization of writing. Punctuation rules are different in every language. The oldest document containing punctuation dates back to the 9th century BC. English punctuation developed when large numbers of Bibles were produced. A standardized punctuation system emerged after the invention of the printing press. Many purists believe punctuation is under threat today. They say that the emergence of text messaging is killing off commas, colons and apostrophes. People are in too much of a hurry to bother with correct punctuation.