Punctuation

  I'm me, I used to be him, but I'm not the one you met before. That was the slogan above the door of Wisdom-quest, which was my first blog going back to the Google plus days, G+ was a social site for nerds, Google canned it. I always liked the opening line, I had forgotten it, but it has been nagging at the edges lately, and so there you have it. The line was a good example of circular reasoning in the comedy side. It is sort of like circular reasoning and spin class in one. Compensated reality, it comes in many forms. Don't ask me because I don't know what it means, it came to mind so I typed it, thought it might even get a chuckle? The question mark denotes doubt as to whether the line is funny. 

  Punctuation: Now there is a topic for a Monday morning. Consider the dot we call a period. It means complete stop, end of sentence but not the end of the subject at hand. Then of course there are comas as I just used and they denote a pause in thought, a time of transition to the continuance of the sentence. If my remembrance from elementary English is wrong, that the mark that denotes the joining of two words is called? I was going to say hyphen, but wrong punctuation mark. An example of the wrongly named hyphen is with the word haven't, which is the two words, have not, as one. Another word on comas. They are great a place to draw a breath if reading a speech aloud. Then of course there is the always exiting exclamation points, they denote emphasis and of importance of the last sentence or word to the writer. Of course if we were to go on using punctuation and their meaning a comedy bit I could hear coming from George Carlin, who was a linguist of the funniest order. Did you know that without at least an element of truth there is nothing funny about any joke? But the placement of exclamation points may not transfer from writer to reader so easily. One man's excitement could be another man's dread. When I started this piece my intent was to write a comedy using punctuation as the basis for the comedic piece. Linguistics and humor go well together as our friend George knew well. Linguistics can be hilarious. But then my intention went to a dire matter, far more important than me playing with language, and that is, Education! We who can read can laugh at things like this, but the disturbing fact is that the majority of kids in this country from grade school to college are reading at levels far blow other cultures. 

  America please. Imagine the most powerful scene you can conjure up in your mind, and commit that to as deep a thought as your mind allows, but also consider the following, This November at election time, add one more urgently important subject, that being education. Yes finance, and yes about all the regulars, but add to your concern the education of our children, their children and so on. Bumper sticker moment: Our children are our future!!