HUNNEMAN: Hype the hyphen


Jeff Rubin wants you to remember that a semicolon is not a surgical procedure.

The founder of National Punctuation Day ---- set for Sept. 24 ---- is continuing his crusade to celebrate the colon, exalt the exclamation point, and hype the hyphen with a writing contest that asks Americans to pick the official punctuation mark of the president of the United States.

OK, that's a stretch ---- all I can come up with is the question mark ---- but Rubin's main point is to call attention to the correct and incorrect usage of punctuation.

The day serves as "a celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotes, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis," according to Rubin's website .

I have interviewed Rubin several times over the years and, while he likes to have a good time with punctuation, he takes his message seriously.

A former newspaper editor from Northern California, Rubin founded NPD in 2004 as a way to draw attention to the importance of proper punctuation.

The idea was born, he told me, from his frustration with poor spelling, grammar, punctuation and other errors he found on billboards and in newspaper, magazines and advertising.

"I was sick of what I was seeing," he said. "I would redline (the errors) and send it off to the editors. I was so upset my wife told me I needed to channel my anger."

That anger grew into National Punctuation Day and a cottage industry for Rubin and his wife, Norma Martinez-Rubin, they've called "Punctuation Playtime."

The couple visit elementary schools across the country holding assemblies for students and working with teachers. They have also produced a DVD/CD package that's for sale that reinforces their lessons.

With the holiday approaching, you can even buy punctuation T-shirts, latte mugs, greeting cards and posters.

Rubin is encouraging both adults and students to enter his presidential contest.

The rules are pretty simple. 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 and semicolon. You may use a punctuation mark more than once, and there is no word limit.

The deadline is Sept. 30.

Looking for inspiration? Last year's nonpresidential contest winners ---- contestants were asked to use all 13 punctuation marks in a paragraph ---- are posted online at .

Hmmm. None of last year's winning entries was from California.

Let's see if any local elementary school classes are up for the challenge. Be sure to let me know if you enter the contest.


