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(Click here to take the National Grammar Day quiz at Web of Language!)

By Dennis Baron

March 4 is National Grammar Day. According to its sponsor, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG, they call themselves, though between you and me, it’s not the sort of acronym to roll trippingly off the tongue), National Grammar Day is “an imperative . . . . to speak well, write well, and help others do the same!”

The National Grammar Day website is full of imperatives about correct punctuation, pronoun use, and dangling participles. In the spirit of good sportsmanship, it points out an error in the Olympic theme song, “I believe.” The song contains the phrase the power of you and I (that’s a common idiom in English, even in Canada, plus it rhymes with fly in the previous line of the song), but SPOGG would prefer you and me.  There’s even a link to vote for your favorite Schoolhouse Rock grammar episode (hint: unless you prefer grammar rules that have nothing to do with the language people actually speak, don’t pick “A Noun is the Name of a Person, Place, or Thing“).

The National Grammar Day home page has even got its own grammar song available for download, though it’s of less than Olympic quality, and the site also boasts a letter of support from former Pres. George W. Bush, apparently SPOGG’s poster child for good grammar, who writes that “National Grammar Day . . . can help Americans prepare for the challenges ahead.” To be sure, Bush wrote that before the grammar bubble burst. The growing number of grammarians filing first-time unemployment claims suggests that the former president was wrong about this, as he was about most things.

You might be tempted to ask why National Grammar Day is different from all other days (it’s O.K. to ask that, so long as you don’t want to know why it’s very unique). National Grammar Day is a day to set aside everyday English and follow special rules that have nothing to do with how people actually talk or write. On all other days, we split our infinitives and start sentences with and and but. But on National Grammar day, we avoid but altogether and utter no verbs at all. On all other days we use like for as. On National Grammar Day, we like nobody else’s grammar all day long. On all other days, we use hopefully as a sentence adverbial. On National Grammar Day, we are no longer sanguine about anyone’s ability to speak or write correctly, and we only expect the worst. Or we expect only the worst.

Over the course of the year there are all sorts of language-themed holidays: National Handwriting Day, National Writing Day, Dictionary Day, English Language Day, Mother Language Day, even, comma, open quotes “Punctuation Day period close quotes.” In England they celebrate Punctuation Day with “close quotes period”. And now, since 2008, we’ve had National Grammar Day as well

It's National Grammar Day--which is like Christmas to those of us who think about words for a living. Okay, not really. But all of us in the editorial department get a special little thrill out of all things grammar- and punctuation-related.

I asked a few of my colleagues to share what they love about grammar or punctuation...

Michael: I probably have 10 grammar guides at home; I used to read the dictionary for fun in 4th and 5th grade (loving the punctuation guide and discovering something called the subjunctive!! "If he were going home this afternoon, . . ."); and I had an uncle who said he had a semi-colon because of his appendectomy.

Julie: I love the exclamation point! The rules say to limit their usage, but it is hard for me to do so. In my perfect world, everything would be said with excitement and enthusiasm.

Christianne: I love the period. It’s so final and so basic. However, I can make a pretty good case for the comma. It offers a nice pause, but nothing overly dramatic. It’s an understated mark that people often overuse and underuse. But when used correctly, it gives the nicest little break in any sentence.

Ali: Probably commas in compound sentences. Which is super nerdy. Or hyphens between compound adjectives. On another note, things that are incorrectly hyphenated are my biggest pet peeve.

And mine? Well, I harbor a not-so-secret love for the look of a diagrammed sentence (I never learned to diagram sentences in school, so my adoration of them wasn't spoiled); I was a two-time winner of the Onamia Elementary spelling bee (the trophy pictured here is my participant trophy from the regional bee, during which I didn't make it to the second round); I married a guy who used to copyedit for a living; and my favorite punctuation mark is, of course, the semicolon.

What about you?

The Lemony Snicket books are coming out in paperback soon. This is a good thing. While I loved the original hardcover design, has any other librarian noticed that for all their eye-catching loveliness they last about as long as a well-used tissue? A Series of Unfortunate Events has few flaws inside their covers, but on the outside they all fray, tear, fade, and turn unbecomingly fuzzy after one or two reads.

So. Paperbacks. This is a good thing. They may actually last longer than their hardcover equivalents. But listen to what Fantagraphics Books discovered about all this:

Tales Designed to Thrizzle creator Michael Kupperman has landed a sweet gig, contributing a series of original strips titled "The Spoily Brats" to the new paperback editions of the best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket. From the preview sample, it looks like just exactly the combination of Snicketry and Thrizzlishness that you would expect.