English teachers at Holmes High School observed National Punctuation Day on Sept. 24 by wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with their favorite punctuation marks. Courtesy photo

English teachers at Holmes High School pulled out all the stops, the commas, the dashes, and the ellipses recently in celebration of National Punctuation Day.

On Sept. 24, the 17 English teachers at Holmes wore white T-shirts emblazoned with their favorite punctuation marks. Each teacher also presented special punctuation lessons to his or her classes in recognition of this relatively obscure holiday.

Then, at the end of the day, each “acted out” his or her punctuation mark on the steps of the “D” academic building.

All of the punctuation hoopla was worth it, according to department coordinator Mina Stecklein, a 31-year teaching veteran, who wore a T-shirt emblazed with a black exclamation point.

“Young people today do much of their communication with e-mails and text messages,” Mrs. Stecklein said. “Because of this, especially with text messaging, students have become experts at using abbreviations and, unfortunately, proper punctuation is slowly going by the wayside.”

It’s not only the students who need to have a refresher course in punctuation, it’s professionals in the business world and everyday Americans as well, the teachers said.

National Punctuation Day, started four years ago by journalist Jeff Rubin in Pinole, Calif., was created to remind Americans that a “semicolon is not a surgical procedure,” according to the Web site www.nationalpunctuationday.com.

“One of our team members, Mrs. Katie Hodgdon, came to me with the idea of celebrating National Punctuation Day here at Holmes and our English team was all for it,” Stecklein explained. “Our teachers really had fun with it and the students were asking about the different punctuation symbols and talking about what teacher was wearing which mark, so I really believe the day was a success. And I say that with an exclamation point!”