Grammar Giggles – How Many Days Does January Have?

I received this in response to an email I sent out. I realize that 2020 messed with our heads, but there are still only 31 days in January in 2021. It is important to review your out of office email after you type it to make sure it reads the way you want it to.

Grammar Giggle – What Year Is It?

A friend received this email from a company she deals with after she called them about an issue. I understand the attempt at improving customer service, but everything is dated two years in the future! Unless those ladies in the DriveTime commercial have figured out a way to go two years into the future instead of only two minutes, there isn’t any excuse for this.

2020

Grammar Giggle – Really Old

A friend sent this to me and I mean no disrespect to Chester Bennington, but this is a pretty glaring error. He was born in 1976. This is an instance where transposition is inexcusable. Didn’t someone actually look at it before it was sent out?

Grammar Giggle – Day of the Week is Right, Number is Right, What Could Be Wrong?

This email was sent to me by a friend who is on a paralegal listserv for our local community college. She thought they were advertising for an event that had already happened. When I was researching it, I found that it hadn’t happened yet. I guess as long as the month starts with an “M,” any month will do. This is an example of the things most people don’t pay attention to that are really important.

Grammar Giggle – Febuary

It’s a fact that February is the hardest month of the year to spell. My 13-year-old granddaughter sent me this one that looks like it was at one of her brother’s wrestling tournaments. I’m so proud of her for catching the mistake and I can feel her mother rolling her eyes from here! 🙂 To make matters worse, not only is February misspelled, but when you use a complete month, day, and year format for the date, you only use the number for the day without using the ordinal figure number (8th). If this sign were correct, it would say “February 8, 2014.”

Febuary

Dates and Commas

Dates seem to be confusing for some people. When you use a complete date (month, day, and year), you should use a comma before AND after the year.

  • On November 11, 2013, the Veterans’ Day parade will start at 10 a.m., but I will be at work.
  • Please send me your time entries for November 1 to December 31, 2012, so I can prepare the fee application.

Of course, there are exceptions. For instance, if other punctuation is necessary after the year, you would omit the comma immediately after the year.

  • On November 11, 2013 (the federal Veterans’ Day holiday), I will miss the parade because I am working.

Also, if the date is in the day, month, year style (13 November 2013), there are no commas unless the sentence requires a comma for another reason.

Where a comma after the year might lead to some confusion, use a semicolon.

  •  Our office will be closed on November 27, 28, and 29, 2013; December 23, 24, and 25, 2013; and January 1, 2, and 3, 2014.

Note that my office will NOT be closed on all of those days. Unfortunately, it is for illustrative purposes only and I will be hard at work on most of those days.

Where you are using just the month and year, there are no commas unless the sentence needs it for another reason.

  • The September 2013 totals show a rise in sales.
  •  We spent most of September 2013, the wettest September on record, trying to keep the water from coming into the house. [Here the commas set off a descriptive expression.]

Don’t be afraid of commas with dates, just learn to use them correctly.