Monday, September 24, 2007

National Punctuation Day

Too many of us who work as translators, writers, and/or editors do not always properly appreciate (or correctly use) punctuation. Since today is National National Punctuation Day (in the U.S., and it's a holiday I think should spread around the world), let's get out our copies of the Chicago Manual of Style and also review this very helpful list of resources.

Happy Punctuation Day!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with this so much! As someone who is a translator but also now works as a subtitle & packaging proofreader, I think punctuation is doubly important for translators, because misuse of punctuation can create unintended ambiguities or misunderstandings. All too often I have seen cases where a punctuation (or grammar) problem in a translation caused someone later down the production stream to misinterpret the line, and render it incorrect meaningwise in an attempt to fix punctuation or grammar.

By the way, my mother gave me Eats, Shoots & Leaves last year as a Christmas present, and I thought it was quite a fun read! It does a pretty good job of covering standard punctuation errors too, I think.

B.J. Epstein said...

Thanks for your comment!
We translators would do well to copy edit our work more carefully before we turn it in. Of course many people don't really understand the rules of punctuation or grammar in the first place, so studying a book like the one you mentioned would be useful!

Best wishes,
Brett