Many of us have seen the meme, Let’s eat Grandma! It’s a powerful reminder how a tiny little punctuation mark, the comma, imparts so much significance to a sentence. A serene little comma placed in exactly the right spot—Let’s eat, Grandma!—saves the day by encouraging Grandma to fill up her plate, rather than dictating cannibalism, thus saving her from a tragic fate.
As funny as this meme is, punctuation really does matter, as a Maine dairy recently discovered. The lack of an Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) ended up costing the company literally millions of dollars in overtime pay to its workers.
The Maine dairy case lends a bit of gravitas to this day, National Punctuation Day. Celebrated annually on September 24, its purpose is to remind one and all of the importance of using proper grammar.
Celebrate the day. Toast it with a glass of milk, a cookie, and a smile. And write Grandma a note inviting her to dinner, using your best grammar. Don’t forget the comma!
Do you struggle with grammar? Become a grammar guru with IEW’s sequential story editing program, Fix It! Grammar. You’ll get those comma rules sorted out in no time!
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