National Punctuation Day: Take The Huffington Post Punctuation Quiz!

Today, friends, is National Punctuation Day, "a celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotes, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis."

In honor of this literary holiday, the Huffington Post news editors have put together an essential punctuation quiz. Test yourself, test your friends, and celebrate the mysterious power of the semicolon.

For each quiz question, there are two sentences with correct punctuation and one sentence with a punctuation error. Select the sentence WITH the error to win big. Enjoy.

National Punctuation Day Quiz

1) The Apostrophe *

Gaddafi's Bedouin-style tent was to be pitched on The Donald's Bedford, New York estate.

Bedfords residents weren't too happy about this, and asked for the tent to be taken down.

Now Gaddafi's upset, too.

2) The Colon *

At the farmer's market, Michelle wore a lei and talked about the tenets: of ''healthy eating'' eat local eat vegetables

Q: What did Michelle Obama wear to the UN? A: A shimmery red skirt suit with a signature bow at the neck.

When I asked HuffPost's Style editor Anya Strzemien if Michelle Obama had one ''best color,'' she answered unequivocally: Yellow.

3) The Comma *

Last Sunday, Obama attempted ''The Full Ginsburg'', which is a term given to anyone who appears on all five Sunday morning political shows: This Week on ABC, Face The Nation on CBS, Meet the Press on NBC, Late Edition on CNN, but not Fox News.

Since Obama eschewed the warm embrace of ''Fox News Sunday,'' it would perhaps be better to call the President's effort the ''Modified, Limited Ginsburg."

Instead of Fox, the President favored Univision. ''We figured Fox would rather show 'So You Think You Can Dance' than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform,'' White House spokesman Josh Earnest told ABC News.

4) The Dash *

On Tuesday night, Rep. Barney Frank and Bill O'Reilly faced off over ACORN -- and the scandal engulfing them.

''Well, you're a little eccentric there, Congressman, with all due respect.'' -- Bill O'Reilly, to Barney Frank.

Frank and O'Reilly argued -- as they have before -- and of course little was resolved.

5) Parenthesis *

Lindsay Lohan recently agreed to host some concerts coinciding with Singapore Grand Prix (She loves cars).

Lohan's home was recently broken into (a suspect has been arrested but not charged) but Lindsay didn't want to discuss it.

''That's for the detectives to do,'' she said (and Lohan is no detective).

6) The Semicolon *

CNN Anchor Anderson Cooper may have swine flu; Sanjay Gupta tentatively diagnosed him on his show last night.

''Swine flu was circulating quite a bit, Anderson, in the area that we were in,'' Sanjay told Cooper; Cooper looked nervous.

Gupta guessed that Cooper had in fact contracted the disease; but was hesitant to give a final and complete diagnosis without tests.

7) Quotation Marks *

A Republican congressman recently expounded on the perils of allowing gay marriage, which he believes is a ''purely socialist concept.''

''It is not only a radical social idea, it is purely socialist concept in the final analysis,'' he said.

Lots of other people found this ''crazy,'' and ''wrong''.

8) Brackets *

''Did Glenn Beck just kill a poor little frog [on national tv]?''

''You know the old saying, if you put a frog into boiling water, he's going to jump right out, because he's scalding hot, but if you place the frog in lukewarm water and gradually raise the temperature, it won't realize what's happening and die?'' [He said.]

''Okay...forget the frog. [pause] I swear I thought they jumped right out. But they don't.''

Show your quiz results to your friends on Facebook

Confused about why your answer was off? Check this handy guide for a refresher in the rules to the most intricate punctuation ins and outs.

Comments

[breakingpoint]

04:33 AM on 09/26/2009

"This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again." - Oscar Wilde

[Jonathan Daniel Harris]

11:58 PM on 09/25/2009

One more brief error: Farmers market does not have an apostrophe.

Yes, it's Friday night and I'm sitting at home taking the punctuation test. What's your point?

[EileenBur]

05:34 PM on 09/25/2009

Apparently I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to grammar mistakes. Here's my piece on my codependent relationship with ellipses on Grammar Girl's podcast...http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/how-to-use-ellipses.aspx

[John Frazier]

02:25 PM on 09/25/2009

The quotation marks are incorrectly placed in #2, which wasn't about quotation marks. The colon should go outside the quotation marks. Also, according to Harbrace, if only two words are in quotes, the punctuation goes outside the quotation mark.

[proudloudlib]

01:52 PM on 09/25/2009

I got 7 out of 8 correct, and who uses brackets anyway?

P.S. You guys crack me up! LOL!

[jl4141]

12:38 PM on 09/25/2009

Let this be a lesson to all: your colon may not pass the smell test.

[TanzaniteDiamonds]

05:41 PM on 10/09/2009

Shouldn't "your" be "Your"?

[JuniperSunshine]

12:03 PM on 09/25/2009

Actually, ALL of the quotation mark answers are wrong. The end quote belongs INSIDE the final period.

... believes is a "purely socialist concept." WRONG
...believes is a "purely socialist concept". RIGHT

The period is only found inside the quote when an entire sentence is being quoted, period and all.

[ChangeRequired]

12:18 PM on 09/25/2009

You are incorrect, the period NEVER goes outside quotation marks.

[Rand]

12:37 PM on 09/25/2009

Correctness would depend upon whether American or British usage is the standard.

[JuniperSunshine]

12:40 PM on 09/25/2009

Incorrect, "purely socialist concept" is not a complete sentence. The punctuation "sticks" to the original sentence. Since we have a phrase and not a sentence, the period goes to the whole sentence, not the quote.

What would you do with this:

Then she yelled, "Fire!"? (As in, is that what she said?)

Do we just do this?

Then she yelled, "Fire?"

That clearly isn't right at all.

[jl4141]

12:37 PM on 09/25/2009

"JuniperSunshine is wrong, wrong, wrong," thought just about every HuffPoster who read his incorrect correction.

[ReverseUniversal]

11:52 AM on 09/25/2009

Haha, I love the comments on this page. Everyone is talking about how the quiz has too many mistakes to be worthwhile. Meanwhile, all those same people are incapable of avoiding typos and mistakes themselves!

Humble pie for all! Pass it around!

[TanzaniteDiamonds]

05:47 PM on 10/09/2009

lmao!! You're so right.

[exxman]

11:38 AM on 09/25/2009

''You know the old saying, if you put a frog into boiling water, he's going to jump right out, because he's scalding hot, but if you place the frog in lukewarm water and gradually raise the temperature, it won't realize what's happening and die?'' [He said.]

Huh?

[More Cowbell]

11:25 AM on 09/25/2009

Wow, need to brush up on my %$#@&@!ing punctuation!

[myoungholt]

11:26 AM on 09/25/2009

Love your comment!

[kid5rivers2]

10:47 AM on 09/25/2009

Huffington's hurriedly-hatched hash has harried her humongous household! Huh?

[ignrnthllblly]

10:32 AM on 09/25/2009

It should have been specified whether we were to judge according to the Queen's English or to the illogical American usage. Shouldn't commas set off the ENTIRE clause?

Alleged overuse of colons, semi-colons and dashes are subjective complaints. The question is: are they otherwise correctly employed? Perhaps the ubiquitous exclamation point and the apostrophe which forms all plurals would be more accurately targeted. Even your examples contain gratuitous use of the comma.

[myoungholt]

10:50 AM on 09/25/2009

So much of what we do seems to follow what "the experts" do. Unfortunately, "the experts" aren't always right. Sometimes the experts aren't really experts, but simply people with more power or money that many look up to as experts.

I worked for an international company in past years, in the "executive suite" on the 12th floor. I was also reputed to be my department's best proofreader. I once suggested corrections when asked to do so and was then told I had marked something incorrectly. The reason was, "That's the way they do it on the 12th floor." My reply was simply, "The 12th floor isn't always right,."

[gle helle]

11:44 AM on 09/25/2009

I once used semi-colons (correctly) in two consecutive sentences, and my boss told me to make a change to one of the sentences (making it incorrect) because it didn't look good.

I knew I wouldn't be able to work there for long.

[dadohead]

10:31 AM on 09/25/2009

Since when is it proper to put a comma or a period outside of quotation marks? You didn't specify British usage, so one assumes you are using Chicago or AP. Evidently not. Completely flawed.

[ReverseUniversal]

11:27 AM on 09/25/2009

Umm, that is precisely the point. In the cases where that occurs, it's a misuse of the punctuation and therefore incorrect (aka, the correct answer).

Perhaps you misread the directions.

"Select the sentence WITH the error to win big."

[WisdomFirst]

10:08 AM on 09/25/2009

I got all of the answers correct, but this should not come as a surprise, since I am a grammar queen. :) I once took the GMATs and achieved a perfect score on the English portion of the test, which made my overall GMAT score soar. And I maintain a list of the many grammar errors I see on this very website. Can't help it! If this site has an editor, they're not doing their job. I should be editing it, for poodle's sake.

[kid5rivers2]

10:19 AM on 09/25/2009

"Can't help it!" should've been parenthesized. Tut, tut!

[myoungholt]

10:22 AM on 09/25/2009

"Can't help it! If this site has an editor, they're not doing their job. I should be editing it, for poodle's sake."

"An" is singular; "they" is plural.

There should be two spaces between sentences.

I can't help it either.

[kid5rivers2]

10:35 AM on 09/25/2009

Good one!

[gallimaufry03]

10:50 AM on 09/25/2009

The 2-spaces rule is disappearing due to variable spacing on most of the new computer fonts. This is an old-fashioned rule I'd like to see die because it ends up causing end-of-line issues in online stuff.

As for the singular/plural issue, I read an article a few weeks ago about how, long ago, it was okay to do this but somewhere along the line, someone made it an issue. Personally, I'd like to see it go back to being okay again since the "he/she" or "s/he" thing is cumbersome.

Just my .02.

[rf dude]

09:40 AM on 09/25/2009

Trick test - all answers are correct Palin-ese...
--

[myoungholt]

09:41 AM on 09/25/2009

I nominate this as the best comment!!!

[gle helle]

09:53 AM on 09/25/2009

Also, too.