The good old semicolon

"Not in 5 years, not in 50 years will I ever forget them; I will remember the way I remember my tongue."

Garp admired how the girl liked to use the good old semicolon.

John Irving

Today is National Punctuation Day.

Fess up now: Forget exactly when or how you're supposed to use a semicolon? An apostrophe? An ellipsis (honestly--do you remember what an ellipsis is?)? A hyphen? Do you remember what a comma splice is?

Quick - what's the difference between "its" and "it's"?

Take a couple of minutes at Jeff Rubin's site and brush up on what your junior high English teacher taught you. You'll be glad you did. I'll be glad you did.

Meanwhile, here's Rubin's advice for celebrating National Punctuation Day.

• Sleep late.
• Take a long shower or bath.
• Go out for coffee and a bagel (or two).
• Read a newspaper and circle all of the punctuation errors you find (or think you find but aren’t sure) with a red pen.
• Take a leisurely stroll, paying close attention to store signs with incorrectly punctuated words.
• Stop in those stores to correct the owners.
• If the owners are not there, leave notes.
• Visit a bookstore and purchase a copy of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style.
• Look up all the words you circled.
• Congratulate yourself on becoming a better written communicator.
• Go home.
• Sit down.
• Write an error-free letter to a friend.
• Take a nap. It’s been a long day.

Sounds reasonable to me.