Romantic Punctuation

What Is A Grammatically Correct Valentine’s Day Symbol?

Today’s post revisits one of the oldest questions around: what is the correct grammatical symbol for Valentine’s Day? For example. chocolatiers have tried to deal with this for eons, and, having come to no universal solution, merely put random squiggles on their finest sweets. For today’s cake, this baker has opted for the colon. Is this a good choice? Let’s take a look.

The goal, of course, is for the giver to declare his or her fondness for the receiver; it is a gift that is designed to promote a feeling of support, of love, if you will, that hopefully will be somehow reciprocated by the receiver. How well do our grammatical symbols do that?

How about a period? Well, how about not. The period indicates the end of a sentence. The end, folks. For those wishing to continue a relationship, giving a symbol that indicates the end is probably not the best idea. In another context, in certain delicate situations if the woman were to give it to the man it might appropriately mean, “You are NOT going to be the Daddy.”


The ampersand (&) is another choice, but vague in its meaning in this environment. It means “and,” but, and what? “Happy Valentine’s Day and…?” Nebulousness never won fair heart.


Maybe an emdash – that’s a longer hyphen. It indicates a break in thought, not a particularly smooth approach for this day, is it? The language of love should flow naturally, n’est pas?


Could we use parenthesis? Yes, if we want to be bopped on the head. It’s not so bad that they indicate a qualifying remark (and really, do you want your feelings to be qualified?) but also that they look like bow legs. “Here, dear, I love you with some qualifications and by the way, you have bow legs.” If you use this, my advice: run!

Well, then, perhaps brackets [] would work. Maybe, if you were studying wood work and the textbook offered some technical information, for that’s what brackets general contain. (Technical information, though not only about wood work.) If you and your beloved are two molecular biologists who happen to be cardiologist, well, perhaps.


Three festively decorated cupcakes in a row representing ellipses (…) might be fun: a cupcake for you, a cupcake for me, and one for us to share. Or, this is you, this is me, and this is us together as one. Awwwwwwww…. Que cuteness…. Unfortunately, ellipses generally mean something is omitted, left out. Is that what you want to say about your feelings? Something is left out? It raises the specter of doubt, incompleteness…. Not a very reassuring message for this special day. [Technical note: I use ellipses a lot, and by a lot, I mean A LOT. For me, it is a style thing, more than a grammar thing, like using all lower case letters in my name….]


Is there hope for the quotation marks? If there is, it isn’t here. Have you ever made those quote marks with your fingers? Sure you have, and when you did that you most likely meant what you said as sarcasm or hyperbole. How does this sound: Happy Valentine’s Day. I “love” you. ‘Nuff said.


Perhaps, then the apostrophe. This will work well if you and your love believe that women are the property of men, for the apostrophe indicates possession. Sam’s = belongs to Sam. If you’ve come along way, baby, skip the apostrophe.


Which brings us back to the colon, and its friend, the semi-colon. Anal allusions aside, the colon is used to indicate an explanation, or a series of things. If you have to explain your love, well, sorry for you. No one want to hear “I love you” followed by some kind of explanation, which will ultimately not only dilute the “I love you” part, but will also totally wash it away. The same is true when it is used to introduce a series of things. Just stop: you had me at “I love you.”

So we’re down to the semi-colon. Could this the perfect Valentine’s Day grammatical symbol? The semi-colon “is used to connect independent clauses.” Furthermore, it shows a close relationship between those clauses. Ah…I think we’re on to something. If we consider each person as an independent individual (independent clause), that sounds rather romantic, doesn’t it. And when we add that it shows a close relationship, well, voilà! Here it is, what we’re after, the answer: something that shows a close relationship between two independent people – the semi-colon! Who knew!


May your Valentine’s Day be filled with semi-colons! And if you love someone, tell them, again and again! And then again. Daily. It’s one of the few things in life you really can’t overdo, and it is something that is as good for the sender to say as it is for the receiver to hear.


And Cake Wrecks…I ; you!