Periods’ End
A reader who came across my blog only recently mentioned that she was busy reading my earlier posts. She placed comments on a few items, including one I had written some time ago. (Thanks! I appreciate comments.) The post in question was related to aging.
I won’t name the person or link to the post because I don’t know if the commenter would be embarrassed by being spotlighted in this way. She seems to be an exceptionally nice person (based on the fact she said she liked my blog), so I don’t want to do anything that might embarrass her. (Note to the those of you who are not as nice as her: you’re fair game.)
In her comment on my post about getting on in years, the commenter noted that she regretted the end of her internal calendar, her periods.
Clearly, this is not something I can relate to personally. And it confused me. Why would anyone lament losing her periods? Then I thought about it. Now I understand the heartbreak of her loss.
It must be personally devastating to experience the end of one’s periods. All I can say to that reader is, I understand how you feel about the loss of your periods, but that is all the more reason to fight to keep your commas, colons, semicolons, ellipses, hyphens, dashes, quotations marks, question marks, exclamation marks and brackets. In particular, fight to retain possession of your apostrophes.
Keep in mind that, despite the passing of your periods being tragic, by carefully wording your sentences, a good semicolon, or even an ellipsis or exclamation mark, can, in a pinch, make a fine substitute for a period.
No need to thank me for this advice. I’m here to help.
Categorised as: stuff and nonsense
Poor poor lady. If she’s truly in need of having her periods back, she can stop by my place. I’ll gladly give her all that I have left.
Roschelle: If she’s reading this, she may be in touch. I’d be interested to learn how you make the transfer.
The only way that makes any sense to me is if she never had the children she wanted.
But your advice should work well for her in the future as she laments her dilemma.
I would probably go one step further and suggest that she get a new keyboard since I really believe the period (really all the punctuation keys) will be fully operational.
David: That’s good advice about the operational punctuation keys on keyboards. However, that’s not something you should take for granted. For example, at my age, my doctor sends me to have my colon checked every five years or so.
I’ve never had a keyboard last as long as five years so I wouldn’t worry too much about a potential colon issue.
David: Good point. Those colonoscopies are hellish. I don’t know why we don’t just eliminate the colon from our punctuation marks.
I asked a women my age once why she was so despondent about losing her period. She said it’s kind of like when a guy loses his hair. Huh? Lady I can go get a toupee. What have you got? Bad analogy…
RedRaider: Yes, it’s a bad analogy, but I can’t think of any analogies that would be more appropriate. And, if I could, they would probably be very depressing. So I think I’m beginning to understand.
I understand, I lost my periods, but now I have explanation mark as my new friend. Unlike periods that only visited me once a month, explanation mark visits me daily.
Explanation mark? New one on me unless you meant exclamation mark.
Stephanie Barr: I looked at your comment in my blog dashboard, which doesn’t show which comment you are replying to. I assumed I had made a typo and was going to corrected. I read and re-read what I wrote to try to find where I had written “explanation” rather than “exclamation”. I couldn’t find it so I went to the actual blog page where I could more easily use a page search facility to find my typo. That’s when I saw the threading of the comments.
Which leads me to the same question as Stephanie’s, was that a typo Margo? Feel free to answer with an explanation mark.1
Oops, damn spell checker may have the correct spelling, but has not figured out how to read my mind to spell the correct word.
MadMadMargo: Yeah, I know. My biggest problem are homonyms. For some reason, despite knowing the difference between, for example, there, and they’re, there (not their or they’re) is a disconnect between my brain and my fingers when I’m typing. (I added the “when I’m typing” so no one would think otherwise.) I know the right word, but some demon force strikes the wrong keys on the keyboard. And, worse, I can proof my writing a hundred times and I will still sometimes not see the mistake. That is, I don’t see it until someone says “you might want to look at that sentence again.” Then I slap my forehead several times to punish myself. Do you think that my slapping of my forehead is the cause of the problem getting worse as I age?
Cute double meaning. For me, I can’t forgo menstruation soon enough, seriously. I have had all the children I’m going to have and the remaining efforts of my reproductive system are largely irksome.
As for punctuation, the rules change so frequently, my head is often swimming. Like, did you know one is only supposed to use one space after a period instead of two? Those kind of rules late in life can cause mental collapse, of which I might become poster woman.
Stephanie Barr: Thanks.
Sorry, but I can’t help you with getting rid of your periods. As to the punctuation, yes, I did know that about the spaces. About 15 or 20 years ago I was working on a major writing project (some marketing material). When the graphic designer got a hold of it she told me that double spaces after a period were very old fashioned and nobody does it anymore. Since then I usually use only a single space after a period, but I have a client that still insists on double spaces.
If you become a poster woman for the mental collapse resulting from those rule changes late in life, stand a bit off-center in the poster to save some room on it for me.
When I was going to college twenty-odd years ago, no one mentioned this little tidbit. When my sister (the English Ph.D.) told be maybe five or so years ago, I was stunned. Where were the headlines? Who held the vote?
I asked my writing buddies on Gather.com (which I never frequent any more) a couple of years ago and none of them had heard it, particularly the grammar nazi type. But my editor friend confirmed it.
Apparently, it’s been out and I’ve been old-fashioned for years. I’ve been writing so long and at such length, it’s ingrained and automatic to put in two spaces so, if I try to stop, I have both one and two spaced spaces. Better to write my normal way and just do a “replace all” at the end. Which I do after my “last” draft.
Stephanie Barr: I see you’re familiar with proper hyphen use. I wish you weren’t. Then I could have asked you what made those twenty years so odd.
I’m not sure that it’s proper to call the double or single space after a period a grammar rule. I think it falls more under the category of “style.” But I agree with you that there should have been some front-page news stories about it. I hate to have learn that sort of thing on the street.
Yes, I love the “replace all.” Now, if I could only get a “replace all” for my life.
I like your blog. Period.
nonamedufus: You are an exceptionally nice person. Period.
ii read in many books and articles that love can came in second …well i think love touched me!A man took my heart by his articles!!! Voli te,Ninica
ninica: Love? Wow! We’ve never even met. Maybe that’s the key in my life. Women rarely love me once they’ve met me. Thanks!
wow but as i know i am not like others women and as i know love have no frontiers!!Thank you and thank you God for this unique opportunity to meet you!!! Nini
ninica: From me, you are very welcome, and it is wonderful to meet you too. As to thanking God, I’ll leave that up to you because I don’t believe there is a god.
Using the name of God is not a matter of faith than normal speech! My children tell me that I am an atheist.I am believer by tradition.
I just want to say:”You make me happy”! Thank you for this gift!
ninica: I must admit that I sometimes say “thank God,” even though I definitely am an atheist. And, again, you’re welcome.
Joel: when someone you really don’t know very well claims she is not like other ‘women’ I recomend caution….unless you are really into those chicks-with-dicks websites. Then just go ahead willy-nilly. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
David: I’m not overly concerned. She seems nice enough. Besides, her Web site says she lives in Croatia. I don’t. I don’t think there’s a problem.
I’m not at all interested in “chicks-with-dicks” websites, but if I arrive at one unwittingly, it’s not going to kill me. I can leave as quickly as I arrived.
What’s more, because you’ve been reading my blog you probably know that I worry about everything. There’s nothing you can tell me to worry about that I haven’t already worried about.
The only thing I’ve ever been worried about is losing my asterisk.
ann: The asterisk. How could I forget the asterisk? Maybe I should add an annotation about that.
Losing your periods is one thing, but what about colon cancer? Would you need to get a hyphendectomy or something? And would it leave you commatose?
Jeez, I crack myself up.
DK @ Knucklehead!: Thanks for that. You crack me up too.
I’d love to lose my periods, of course, they have always been irregular, not unlike my comma usage. Which I can’t seem to remember.
I suspect that comma usage has also been revised since the dark ages when I learned grammar, because my sister (that same English Ph.D.) always corrects the commas in about a billion places and half of them don’t make any sense to me.
Stephanie Barr: I think grammar, including comma usage, is important. Then again, it’s not worth going into a coma as a result of worrying about commas.
Jen: Sorry, I know nothing about irregular periods, although I am vaguely familiar with irregular verbs. I hate it when I misplace my commas, which I do often. I hate it even more when I misplace my keys, which I also do often.
oh but mine have always been so regular and i have it now very regular ..problem is that all my friends think that it must stop coz i am 53 and half.And i love my period,i really do!!
ninica: I know I wrote the post but, unless we’re talking about punctuation, I’m having a hard time relating to this conversation. I’m sure some of the women who stop by here can continue this discussion about periods that aren’t punctuation, but, because of my Y chromosome, I’ve already gone as far (and probably farther) as I can go with it.
Well, just for her, here’s a couple of periods..
ReformingGeek Thank you for your contribution. I’m sure she appreciates it.
Could it possibly nothing to do with losing the period but reaching the age of losing the period where some will start to question what they have accomplished?
BK: That I could understand. I’m at that age myself and I’m lamenting a few of the age-related changes that are happening to me. (Although the loss of periods is, obviously, not something I’ve experienced…..)
sorry,sorry …
I am missing in the translation!!!!!
ninica: No need to apologize. You speak English much better than I speak your native tongue, which is not at all.
I lost my ass in Vegas and now I take comfort in my semicolon.
Doctor Faustroll: I’m sorry to hear that your trip to Vegas was punctuated.
I am surprised no one mentioned braces.. maybe it is a temporary addition and often people are happy to have lost it. I really enjoyed the post.. took me back to the days when I began software coding in the ancient language of COBOL. A period is mandatory to control the program flow and is often missed by newbies. So, the running joke in our team was -
A visibly distraight lady comes over to a geek guy and says that she has missed her period. To which the guy says, “Yes, no wonder you programs do not compile”
Fake Upgrader: Thanks for that. I hadn’t heard that one. I don’t think a non-programmer would get it without your explanation, and if an explanation is required it tends to kill the joke. So why do I find it funny? I was a programmer in earlier life (for about 10 years before I grew bored of it because computers have no sense of humor). I wrote and maintained a couple of COBOL programs, but my main language was an almost equally ancient one, PL/1.