After reading a brief narrative about how punctuation evolved
over the years, I noticed it had an eerie similarity to the seven Ecumenical Councils.
Wikipedia Note: The first seven
Ecumenical Councils, recognized by both the eastern and western branches of
Chalcedonian Christianity, were convoked by Christian Roman Emperors, who also
enforced the decisions of those councils within the state church of the Roman
Empire. Acceptance of councils as
ecumenical and authoritative varies between different Christian denominations.
Disputes over Christological and other questions have led certain branches to
reject some of the councils that others accepted.
The key words in the above text
are enforced, acceptance, disputes, and reject. Let’s translate that to today’s
world, shall we?
The Enforcers are the Literary Police whose only purpose in life is
to point out mistakes. The Acceptee’s are the Readers; they like a good story
and don’t dwell on disputable punctuation. The Disputers are unimaginative 12th Grade
English teachers and College Professors; they know everything, just ask them.
And finally the Rejecters, they're people like me; we play with
punctuation like a child plays with Legos.
Out of necessity, jimmy and I convened our own Literary Ecumenical Council to determine our preferred definitions of all punctuation.
A Period means stop, start a new sentence, go pee pee, get a drink, then continue reading.
A Comma means you need to take a
short breath, or perhaps, you just want to be a drama queen, and, add, an excessive, amount of, pauses.
A Semicolon is for adding extra thoughts or for specific, important stuff; or to make a crazy long sentence that takes the
readers breath away; hey, you gotta exercise a little bit while reading!
A Colon is for listing things like: rum, coke, ice, and lemon; a cool refreshing drink while reading is vital.
Quotation Marks are a writer’s
paradise. Inside them you can say it and spell it however you want. Quotation
Marks are like Las Vegas – What happens in the quotes, stays in the quotes. Party Time!
An Exclamation Mark means you're excited
about what you just wrote! More than one is redundant!!! , but fun!!!!!!
A Question Mark denotes a
question or confusion. What? HUH?
Parenthesis they are a writer's VIP room. You get a peek inside the writers head. Yikes! (See Quotation
Marks.)
Dashes and Ellipses – use them for
extremely . . . exciting . . . dramatic pauses, or . . . you simply want the reader to
take a . . . breath. Breathing is very important. Dashes are for additional information, instead of a new sentence, or a dramatic pause.
There you have it! Dr. jimmy
says that exploiting and manipulating punctuation is a great way to relieve
stress.
Note: Italicizing and Underlining mean you probably should pay attention to those words or sentences; there might be a pop-quiz about them later.
Librarians are the gatekeepers, protecting written knowledge for future generations to study, explore, and repeat mistakes.
“Mr. Kafka; did you reread Homers
Iliad last night?”
“Yes . . . yes I did, jimmy.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Nothing. I’ll make you a grilled
cheese sandwich, and then we’ll go take a nap under the willow tree.”
-jk-
