Let’s all celebrate Punctuation Day!

If you’ve read and relished “Eats, Shoots & Leaves,” have more than one copy of Strunk and White, an old version of Turabian and several dog-eared stylebooks on the shelf, this is your day. It is the official Punctuation Day!

Take a walk around an ellipse … exclaim your love of typography! Address, dear reader, your affection for the lowly dots and tail-wagging dots; as well as your appreciation of the combination of the two. Let’s get apoplectic over misplaced apostrophes. Why not?

According to the Chicago Tribune, Jeff Rubin, 59, a former copy editor, successfully bid for Sept. 24 to be listed as a holiday in Chase's Calendar of Events in 2004. There is even a Punctuation Day Web site and contest.

Here is the joke that gives Lynn Tuss the title for her delightful book on punctuation:

“A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down and orders a sandwich. After he finishes eating the sandwich, the panda pulls out a gun and shoots the waiter, and then stands up to go. ‘Hey!’ shouts the manager. ‘Where are you going? You just shot my waiter and you didn't pay for your sandwich!’
“The panda yells back at the manager, ‘Hey man, I am a Panda! Look it up!’

“The manager opens his dictionary and sees the following definition for panda: ‘A tree-dwelling marsupial of Asian origin, characterized by distinct black and white coloring. Eats shoots and leaves.’ ”

By adding a comma, a joke, and a book, are born.