Punctuate the New Year

Greetings, ELOGOS readers! We’ve made it through another year together. I am so grateful. My saddest moments are deleting email addresses belonging to friends who have died. My joyous moments are writing these offerings, sowing them in the cyber soil of the internet, and trusting that the mystery of God’s goodness will work as it will.

A few weeks ago on social media, I posted the question: If you were a punctuation mark, which would you most and least like to be? I was so delighted with the answers that came from my friends that I wanted to share them with you.

• I'd be an exclamation mark! I am typically pretty confident in what I say and how I've said it. I'd least like to be a question mark, the people I see that question everything seem so miserable......

• I would like to be a comma. It serves multiple functions. It can connect things, and it can also break confusing and lengthy text into comprehensible chunks, clarifying and making sense of it. I would not want to be a pound sign, both because I hate hashtags, and because I hate having to punch keys into automated phone answering systems. Press the pound sign to return to the main menu...

• I definitely would be an exclamation mark! I hardly know how to write without it! I am always trying to make a point! I love exclamation marks!!!

• Semi-col[on; no wait I'm not quite done maybe no yes I'm done I think.

• I'm an exclamation mark too....mostly for my overuse of them! 🤣. I think I'd be OK with the other options though....they all have value (even if I don't always use them correctly!) I would say my response is 1/2 based on my grammatical understanding (which is sparse….its hilarious when I teach technical writing). The other 1/2 is based on my psychology/faith understanding. Everyone (even punctuation marks) has value! So, yes? 🤣🤷🏼‍♀️🤓

• Noting how many exclamation marks have posted. 🤔I’m going to lift up the question mark as I continue to wonder about my actual favorite…

• Punctuated Christmas sermon: Mary missed her period. Joseph said Wait! What? Angels Exclaimed their point. Shepherds told to comma long and see.

• I would like to be a question mark. Curious.

• I would like to be a semicolon; there's always more to the story. I would not like to be an umlaut, because it takes too much mental energy and too many steps to figure out how to make one on most keyboards.

• I think I would be an exclamation point as well. And since you've met me, I don't think I need to explain any further. 🤣

• I would be an exclamation point-lots of exciting things out there, and I get real excited about a lot of them! I would not be a period. There is too much finality in a period! I can handle multiple periods…….is there a name for that?

• (Actually there is a name for that….but only 3 periods - apparently more than that is excessive)

• I think I most likely be a hyphen...something in-between the past and future. Least likely would be a period...just not that conclusively dramatic.

• A period. The end

• Most : An ellipses - there’s a sense of uncertainty, dare I say mystery about it… Least: comma. The student go-to when they don’t know what else to put. I have come to despise commas.

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May your new year be punctuated with love and joy!!! No doubt there will be sorrow mixed with memories in our sentences. There will be fear and curiosity in our questions. No matter what, there will be more…

Peace,

debgrant