Get off your hobbyhorse and hear this sad tale

Sometimes a painful memory jumps out of nowhere to smack you upside the head. You're suddenly 2 again, wondering why your sister bullied you.

That's what happened to me while reading about a new sports craze in Finland.

People there, particularly young girls, are participating in what they call hobbyhorsing – a "sport" where competitors race through a course of hurdles and barriers while "riding" a stick horse. They also parade around on their stick horses, trying to look regal.

Yes. They're mimicking the Olympics sports like dressage and show jumping.

While straddling a pretend horse, the kind of toy that most of us leave behind when we enter kindergarten.

Video disseminated by The Associated Press of a championship event (!) showed exclusively young girls. No boys. No adults. It looked like (and may have been) video from an all-girls middle school event.

They weren't riding horses. They rode stick horses!

It was ridiculous. Girls running around (some "galloping," in an apparent effort to appear more real) in a gymnasium while hurdling and dodging through a maze. Kind of impressive, in a way, but . . .  then my memory came. Again, as it has over the decades.

I once had a stick horse, a story I previously told in this space. My sister is 2½ years older than me, which seems unimportant now, but was very important when I was 2 and shared a bedroom with her. She was twice as old as me!

The stick horse was one of my favorite toys, a beloved red-and-white steed that "carried" me around the house while I shot with my fingers at various people. My sister knew I loved Old Red (a name I'm giving it now, to make it seem more beloved). She probably resented it. At least that allows the rest of the story to make sense.

Because in a moment that is indelibly impressed on me (and which I repeat at nearly every family gathering), my sister took my stick horse, made it into a bridge between our parallel twin beds and bounced on it.

And bounced.

And bounced.

Until Old Red broke.

I was heartbroken. My sister broke my favorite toy, with no good reason. She apologized, saying it was an accident (my 2-year-old self rejected her explanation, having seen her bouncing on it). My parents taped up Old Red and I resumed my daily patrol around our home, albeit on a horse that would never be the same.

I loved Old Red.

I loved him so much that had my sister not broken him and had I been born decades later as a girl in Finland (granted, those are three major changes), I might have been one of the hobbyhorse racers.

Also, had she not broken Old Red, my sister might not have tried to appease me years later (after repeatedly hearing this story) by buying me a replacement.

I was an adult. I eventually got rid of it, a decision I now regret because it's obvious what I should have done for revenge.

No, not to compete in a Finnish hobbyhorse event.

I should have cut off the stick horse's head and had one of my nieces or nephews place it on their mother's bed while she slept.

Message sent.

Without the nonsense of a fake Finish sport.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

A depressing look at how I rank friendships

Making friends can be hard. Ranking them is tougher.

When you make childhood friends, the evaluation method is simple: You (ideally) have a best friend, then others. You sometimes rank friends: A best friend, an inner circle (relatives, school mates, neighborhood pals, etc.) and  a larger group of acquaintances. But you have a best friend.

It's easy. When I was 9, my best friend was Troy, my next-door neighbor. Anyone who knew us knew we were best friends, forged out of a shared interest of being the youngest siblings and living close to each other. We built a fort together. We made up nicknames for each other. We were best friends.

Fast-forward 15 years.

In your 20s, you have friends and colleagues.  In my early 20s, I wasn't so concerned about who was my best friend, but which of my friends would be in my wedding. For me, it wasn't particularly tough: When Mrs. Brad and I married, I went with the guys I saw regularly and who I trusted. I picked three buddies, my future brother-in-law and a pseudo little brother. Troy, by the way, was long gone.

Fast-forward 10 more years and the friend-ranking world changed again.

By my mid-30s, my rankings focus was different. It was now a question of who would raise our kids should Mrs. Brad and I be killed in a plane crash (and by that, we meant being hit by a crashing plane, since we rarely flew). The criteria were who was close to us, knew our family and shared our values. (Also, it needed to be someone who could fit two additional kids in their family car.)

For us, it was  easy – we picked our closest friends from our hometown, who were both the obvious choice and willing. Neither of them, by the way, had been in our wedding. They were friends who became really close friends after our marriage started.

Fast forward two decades to now.

The way I evaluate friends at this stage – childhood is a distant memory, my wedding was decades ago, my kids are adults – has changed. Again.

It's not picking a "best friend."

It's not choosing who would be in a wedding.

It's not picking who would take care of my children.

It's . . .

Who Mrs. Brad should ask to carry my casket in the event of my untimely demise.

Yeesh.

Seriously. I'm hopefully decades from death (barring being hit by a crashing plane), but the way I currently rank  friends is to decide which six guys should carry my casket and which of them should be asked to speak at my funeral. I had coffee recently with my friend Steve (one of the six and one of the speakers) and he agreed.

Curious.

For me, the sad part is the realization that, when it comes down to it, the way we pick our closest friends (or the way I do, at least) is selfish. It's who's most useful to us.

As a kid, it's who is most fun.

When marriage arrives, it's who fills out the wedding party.

When kids arrive, it's who can step in and substitute.

And when we get older, it's who will memorialize us and carry our casket.

You want to be my friend? Be prepared to carry my coffin!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Talking to dogs shows that you're smart

Maybe our dogs should tell us to "speak!"

At least that's the best practice based on a report by Nicholas Epley, a behavioral science professor at the University of Chicago.

Epley says that when we speak to our pets, we anthropomorphise them – assign them human characteristics. Is it silly to do so? Maybe to your overly serious brother-in-law or to the neighbor who overhears you singing to your dog.

Not to Epley.

The professor says that doing so is a sign of what makes humans smart. He says talking to our pets is "a natural byproduct of the tendency that makes humans uniquely smart on this planet."

Of course, it's a human saying humans are uniquely smart, so consider that. Maybe a lizard is currently telling other lizards that baking in the sun is evidence of why lizards are uniquely smart.

But you know who thinks Epley's report is good news? Brandy, our 9-year-old weimaraner.

She implicitly trusts me. She also gets the same instructions from me every day when I leave: "OK, you're in charge now. Be a good girl today and I'll see you when I get home."

Imagine Brandy's disappointment if that showed I was crazy. Imagine her joy if she knew it showed I was smart! She might run in circles!

She might dart frantically around our yard.

Epley told digital publication Quartz that speaking to animals is "treated as a sign of childishness or stupidity, but it's actually a natural byproduct of the tendency that makes humans uniquely smart on this planet."

Yes, I used the quote about being uniquely smart on this planet twice. Because it makes me feel better. And it's almost as smart as talking to dogs.

Epley's view goes beyond pets. He says giving names to plants, cars and even cameras is smart. He says attributing human characteristics to nonhuman things (cats are sassy, the stock market is bullish, our car is stubborn) is a mark of our superior intelligence.

In other words, when I shout at my phone to stop bugging me, I'm being smart. When I call my toothbrush "Stretch," I'm showing unique brilliance. When I'm convinced that my pillow is part of a massive global conspiracy to suffocate me while I sleep, I'm exhibiting advanced thinking.

So despite what other people may think–and, frankly, what my judgmental coffee cup and my selfish shampoo might think–it's not weird to assign human characteristics to nonhuman things.

Brandy and I were talking about that the other day, although I was doing most of the talking. She showed dogged determination to understand me (See? It often makes sense, even if you're a skeptic!) as I explained why I don't fully trust the lawnmower because it seems to be more difficult to start when I'm in a hurry. Typical lawnmower, right?

Brandy didn't argue, like humans would. She didn't even speak. I presume she understood and I take comfort in the report by Epley.

When I talked with Brandy, she got to engage with a human being (the uniquely smart being on the planet) and I got to show how smart I was.

And she's an outstanding listener, too.

Unlike my microwave, Larry.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Why the NBA is the best sport in America

This is as good a time as ever to jump on the bandwagon, because the NBA is the greatest sport in America.

Sure, it seems bandwagonny (if that's a word) because we're in the midst of the greatest run in Bay Area sports history – the Golden State Warriors' effort to win their second championship in three years, capping the greatest three-year winning run in NBA history. They're preparing to open the second round of the playoffs, meaning you still have six weeks of games to watch.

However, most American fans miss out. According a Harris poll from a little over a year ago, the most popular sport in America is pro football. Baseball is second, college football is third and auto racing is fourth. Auto racing!

Pro basketball is fifth.

America is wrong. Again. Just like that season of "American Idol" when Taylor Hicks won.

The best sport is professional basketball. Disagree? I'll give you seven reasons – one for each game of last year's epic NBA Finals series between the teams with the best rivalry in sports: The Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

1. Star power. No other sport has the number of recognizable stars: LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin. We could go on, but the NBA is home to recognizable players with different styles. This has always been true.

2. Character shows. There's no sport that better exposes someone's character. Play a 3-on-3 game at the park and you realize who's selfish, who always hustles, who gets better under pressure. The same thing is true in the NBA. James is impervious to pressure. Curry has fun. Westbrook plays with a burning passion. Griffin shrinks from the spotlight. Players are exposed, for good or bad.

3. Watchability. Basketball fits TV. It's a two-hour, 20-minute game in a contained space with cameras in all the important areas. Watching a game on TV is as good as being there, except it isn't. If you've never been to an NBA game, you've missed the best experience in sports. Not only are the games exciting, the entertainment is fun and engaging. No one leaves an NBA game bored.

4. Stars stick around. NBA salary rules are set up to encourage stars to stay put. While great players can switch teams (see Durant), there are more superstars who remain with one team (Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird, Curry) than other sports. If you get attached to a superstar on your team, he'll probably stay for a long time.

5. Stars always play. There's no intentional walk in the NBA. There's no double-covering a wide receiver. The best player on an NBA team will get plenty of opportunities..

6. Emotion is OK. Every NBA game includes moments of pure joy and obvious frustration. Make a 3-pointer and dance. Dunk over an opponent and mug. Miss an open shot and shake your head. There's nowhere to hide and no unwritten rules that forbid emotion (hello, baseball).

7. Warriors. OK, this is a homer call, but the Warriors are historically great right now. If you miss watching them, it's like missing the 1965 Beatles, Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane," ribs from Fairfield's Tony Roma's restaurant in 1985 and Dick Van Patten as Tom Bradford in "Eight is Enough." You miss the best of the best.

This sport ranks behind auto racing? Incomprehensible.

Get on the bandwagon!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Mystifying, maddening editorial cartoons

I love nearly everything about newspapers.

I love the news and photos and local coverage. I love the mix of international, national, state and local news – as well as feature and sports articles.

That's not all. I love the fact that subscribers get a free rubber band every day. I love that there is a sports scoreboard page, showing the standings as of midnight the night before. I love that I can find out why there were sirens in my neighborhood. I love the advice columns, where I can take comfort from people more dysfunctional than me.

I spent decades working in newsrooms. I just don't understand editorial cartoons.

In many ways, editorial cartoons are a throwback – a daily effort by people to combine art with political commentary.

Except it's not really art. And the commentary often escapes me.

You probably understand them better than me. I should be ashamed of this, since picking the editorial cartoon du jour was one of my jobs during my run as news editor at the Daily Republic.

The truth: I often guessed. I didn't really understand what the artists were saying. So I'd make a best guess and rely on my colleagues to catch a mistake.

The inability to understand art isn't unique to me, I realize. Many of us  go to a museum or art show and then stare at art, purse our lips and nod.

"Mmmm. Interesting," we say.

But we don't understand. (This makes me sad. My son is a professional artist, with a degree in illustration. I would like to think I understand most of his work. But maybe not. And at least he's not an editorial cartoonist.)

Anyway, back to the editorial cartoon. Most of them aren't that artistic, unless the artist is a third-grader with a box of crayons or a water-color set. The drawings in editorial cartoons are often just a step above stick figures. They're just more sophisticated because they allegedly have a political message.

Here's the typical cartoon (at least in my memory): A badly drawn caricature of the president (could be Obama, could be Trump, could be Gerald Ford) with a smoking building in the background, labeled as "special interests." There is a donkey in one corner labeled "Dem's expectations" and a little man in the other corner saying "Don't ask me. I saw nothing."

Underneath the entire confusing picture is the caption, which ties it all together. Except it's often something like "Business as usual!"

What? Who?

I have no idea what it means. I have no idea what most editorial cartoons mean and sometimes I wonder whether they're some sort of secret communication designed to mock me.

Sophisticated people love editorial cartoons. They even occasionally share one on social media or reference them in conversation.

I don't understand them.

I follow the news. I like politics. But I didn't understand the editorial cartoons when I was a kid, I didn't understand them when I was a sports writer, I didn't understand them when I was choosing them and I don't understand them now.

Wait a minute. Maybe that's the meaning of "Business as usual!"

Mmmm. Interesting.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Is there life around TRAPPIST-1?

The truth is out there. And by out there, I mean 40 light-years away, on one of the seven Earth-like planets that astronomers discovered orbiting a star.

By Earth-like, I mean of course that they are Earth-sized, temperate, capable of having water on their surface and have maps of them made by Rand McNally (a joke you understand if you are 50 or older).

The stunning announcement was made a couple of months ago in the journal Nature and in a press conference at NASA headquarters, where they were still trying to explain that Tom Hanks wasn't really an astronaut on Apollo 13.

"This is the first time that so many planets of this kind are found around the same star," said Michaël Gillon, the lead study author and astronomer at the University of Liège in Belgium.

The rocky planets were found in tight formation around the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 (the first ultracool dwarf star since Hervé Villachaize). Three of the planets may even have oceans on the surface, which would give any space rockets plenty of landing space, assuming rocket travel hasn't changed since my childhood of the 1970s, when "frogmen" rescued astronauts who returned from space.

This could be a massive moment in space exploration.

"I think we've made a crucial step toward finding if there is life out there," said Amaury Triaud, one of the study authors and an astronomer at the University of Cambridge. It was immediately unclear, though, if by "out there," the nerdy Triaud meant in space or outside his mother's basement.

Triaud was talking about life on the other planets later, though, when he noted that a key is, "if life managed to thrive and releases gases similar to what we have on Earth, we will know." I, for one, am not totally sure I want to go to a planet where they release "gases similar to what we have on Earth."

The seven planets are in a space that is – in space terms – extremely tight. In fact, they're so close to each other that one of the planets continually asks another to quit breathing so loud and to stop chewing with its mouth open.

The excitement was palpable in the normally reserved astronomy community, where the inhabitants normally get loud only when someone confuses astronomy and astrology. But even if astronomers find life or evidence of it, it would take millions of years to travel to the planets.

That means that a one-way trip to one of the planets would take longer than that last visit to your doctor – and would likely be done without the benefit of copies of People or Highlights magazines to kill time.

The good news is that TRAPPIST-1 is a relatively young star that is evolving slowly, more like Clint Howard than Ron Howard. So when our sun burns out, we can launch ships and head to space, hoping to find a nice place to land, live and prosper.

"This is the most exciting result I have seen in the 14 years of Spitzer operations," said Sean Carey, manager of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, apparently forgetting the time Rick in HR accidentally sent a reply to the entire staff after receiving an email complaining about possible sexual harassment.

So to repeat: A star that brings back memories of Hervé Villachaize and Clint Howard could have nearby planets that are gassy, would take forever to reach and might require frogmen to rescue you if you somehow arrived.

Sounds like a typical family vacation to me.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

I wish I had an emoji to show how I hate emojis

I hate emojis.

You know emojis: The little figures that find their way into emails, text messages, instant messages and social media posts. They're the smiley face or the devil horns or the stack of money or the dancing guy (which technically is an emoji GIF, but that's for another time).

I don't dislike them because of what they do. I dislike them because of what they replace: Real communication. Words, either spoken or written.

Emojis cheapen the value of words because they use an image. Worse yet, it's not even a personal image, it's something that a programming nerd designed in an underground bunker in Palo Alto while eating hot Cheetos (which may not be true, but it fits my narrative and creates a villain).

Emojis are the next logical step backward in the communication trends of the past decade.

We started with acronyms (LOL, ROTFL, OMG) that were commonplace and saved us the effort to come up with our own words to describe a reaction. Then came memes, photos (often from a movie or TV show) with a catch phrase included. Soon no one seemed able to react to anything with their own thoughts, but were reduced to using other people's words and images to say what they're thinking.

At the same time, we started using emoticons – such as :) for a smiley face. Fewer words were needed. We could just hit a couple of buttons and pretend we were clever.

Then, the emoji.

Allow me to remind you: These are fine. They are tools. They help people say things.

I'm just afraid that they're replacing language.

They are so prevalent that I wonder whether most emoji-users are capable of using actual words to express themselves. They're too pleased with their ability to share that stupid smiley face with rectangular eyes (which everyone else has seen 1,000 times).

Here's my old-man rant: Use words. Express yourself verbally. Say or write such things as "that's great," or "that's not funny," or "if you don't quit bugging me, I'm contacting HR."

Because emojis are like a Rorschach test. When you post a dollar sign, I may think you're saying "great idea, that's money!" when you may mean "that's greedy!" But because you didn't use words – you know, the way mankind has communicated since the beginning of time – I'm unclear.

Otherwise, I fear we're reversing thousands (or more) years of human advancement. We're communicating faster, but with less accuracy.

At the current pace, adults in a generation or two will be reduced to what cavemen did in the prehistoric era: Using pictures on walls to express thoughts while the ability to use language – to write, speak, sing, communicate – will be reduced to pictographs on walls.

And that would make me :(.

LOL.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Radioactive boars, gathering whales can't be good

Oh, sure, you continue to whistle in the dark, pretending it's not the apocalypse. You can yell, "fake news!" You can bury your head in the sand.

I know better. I read the internet!

Call me an alarmist. Call me a fanatic. But please, don't call me to help when you face radioactive boars or huge gangs of aggressive humpback whales. Because they're out there. And they're coming.

Yes, they're coming. For us.

Radioactive boars? Sure. In Japan, where the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant melted down six years ago, we now have radioactive boars roaming the countryside, according to The New York Times.

According to the Times ("boaring, but never boring," should be its motto), boars are rampaging the countryside, sometimes attacking people. Japanese people like to eat boar meat, but these critters are too toxic to digest. Worse yet? As former residents of the nuked region prepare to move back after years of being kept away, boars have taken over their homes and have lost their fear of humans.

Because they're radioactive.

Read that last sentence again! The boars are radioactive.

Hunters have been set loose and have killed so many that they're running out of burial ground. For radioactive boars!

And there's still hundreds – or thousands – of them out there.

Bad news, right? Scary, right?

Well, that's not all. Consider another story that came out a couple of weeks ago: Humpback whales are congregating in large numbers off the coast of South Africa.

According to the Popular Science website (where presumably they talk about using soda bottles to make rockets and other "popular" things you can do with science), whales rarely even gather in groups of 10 to 20. Now groups of 200 are gathering off South Africa.

It's a whale-a-bration!

And here's what's worse: They're not supposed to be there. At the time of the report, the whales should have been gathering near Antarctica.

They're in huge groups. In a place where they normally don't gather.

Plotting. Waiting.

Scientists don't really have any good theories for why. Maybe it's food-related, although that's not likely. Maybe it's because the oceans are warming, but the ocean is warm near South Africa, too. Maybe they're like the entertainers who flocked to South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s for huge paychecks, ignoring the apartheid laws of the time.

It's a mystery.

But anyone who's watched science-fiction movies knows that animals are usually first to recognize the changes that lead to the eradication of humanity.

You can say you're not nervous. So can I. We can both say the presence of radioactive boars in Japan is nothing to be concerned about. We can dismiss the fact that humpback whales are gathering off the coast of South Africa in unheard of numbers. We can pretend that those things don't matter.

Here's all I know: Those are always harbingers of doom in movies and books about the apocalypse. Radioactive animals and unprecedented behavior is menacing.

I'll wait to really get worried, though, because I've watched enough scary movies.

The day I get worried is when all those things happen and a former game show host is the president of the United States.

Wait, what?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Previous addiction to soap opera reveals much

I hit cultural rock-bottom when I was in my late 20s: I was addicted to a soap opera TV show.

I'm grateful to still be around.

The problems started almost three decades ago – in the late 1980s, to be precise. I hadn't watched soap operas, because they were ridiculous. They seemed as bad as the parodies that appeared on shows such as "The Carol Burnett Show," where they would exaggerate the absurd nature of the over-the-top drama.

Then came Mrs. Brad's lunch breaks.

I was working evenings at the Daily Republic and Mrs. Brad had a day job in town, resulting in a lunch hour together daily. She would come home while I was getting ready to head to the office. We ate, talked . . . and soon, we watched "All My Children," something she had done as a teen.

It was as silly as I expected, but it was a comfortable habit in the pre-DVR, pre-Netflix days. On "All My Children," the denizens of Pine Valley went about their lives, with divorces, affairs, arrests, schemes, etc. It was entertaining in a strange way.

Soon it was appointment television. Then it became worth recording on our primitive VCR, to be sure we didn't miss anything.

The best part? Several co-workers watched it, too. So I could casually enter conversation about Adam Chandler and Palmer Courtlandt. We could talk about how ridiculous it was that Erica Kane was dating a Russian prince. We could laugh at the antics of teenage Hayley (played by Kelly Ripa!).

It became a regular event. Every day at noon, Mrs. Brad and I would watch. When our first son was born, it was nice to be able to unplug and watch while he slept or ate or crawled. We recorded all episodes, so we wouldn't be slaves to the TV schedule.

It seemed normal.

And then . . .

One day, I gave a ride to a co-worker who was a casual watcher of the program. He asked what was happening on "All My Children."

"Well, Natalie is in a coma but we found out she has a twin sister named Janet," I told him. "Janet pretended to be Natalie and steal Trevor and he doesn't know the truth. Erica and Travis' marriage is on the rocks, and she looks like she's going to hook up with his brother, Jackson. And then Tad and Dixie are . . ."

I heard myself. I sounded like a Carol Burnett character describing an over-the-top soap opera in a skit: "As the Stomach Turns."

It was an eye-opener. I had gone from skeptic to sampler to true believer.

In two years, I had accepted that it was normal for a man in his 20s to watch a silly soap opera and follow the plot.

I felt ridiculous.

Mrs. Brad and I talked and decided it was enough. We stopped watching "All My Children." I went back to mocking those who do.

But whenever I get too carried away making fun of someone for being plugged into "Vanderpump Rules" or "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," I think back to that time when Mrs. Brad and I fell into a trap and became fanatics for "All My Children."

I'm grateful that it's behind me.

The only thing worse than being addicted to a soap opera (which is now off the air) would be to have 10 marriages, like Erica Kane!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

The definitive punctuation mark rankings, period

Punctuation, of course, matters. Otherwise, there's no difference between "let's eat, Grandma" and "let's eat Grandma."

Grandma knows there's a difference. And she'd be glad to hear you say, "Sorry, I love you." But not, "sorry I love you."

Punctuation marks are important. But how do they rate? Glad you asked. As a professional writer, I use punctuation marks every day and keep a handy list of how I rank them (not really, but play along for purposes of this column).

Following are the top 10 punctuation marks, from least to most important (correct use is significant, too).

10. Semicolon. The most-frequently misused punctuation mark; it is sometimes used as a replacement for a comma or even a colon. I hate semicolons – in my writing, they're replaced by a dash or by breaking the thought into two sentences. Like this.

9. Single quotation mark. Here's the rule: They are used to indicate quotes inside of quotes. "Frank said he told her 'go away,’ ” is correct. All other uses (frequently used to refer to TV or book titles) are wrong. You don't want to use them like 'this.'

8. Hyphen. This is how we combine words, giving them a first-class identification. The only exception is when an adverb is part of a compound word, usually indicated by the first word ending in "ly," although family-friendly is acceptable (since family isn't an adverb. But that's another column).

7. Colon. It's the preferred way to identify a single entity: The colon. Although people sometimes confuse it with its idiot cousin, the semicolon, the colon is a strong way to indicate a conclusion: The colon rocks.

6. Quotation mark. They're double and they go around things people say, titles of all compositions except the Bible and are often misused by people to indicate emphasis. My favorite: A church sign years ago that said this: "Jesus" is the reason for the season. The marks indicated that Jesus was perhaps his nickname.

5. Apostrophe. Indicates possession or a contraction, although many people struggle with the choice between it's and its. In this one exception, there is no apostrophe in the possessive. But don't forget it in forming a contraction. You cannot get away with that. You just can't.

4. Question mark. Every sentence ends with a question mark or period, but this punctuation form trails the period because you can write around it. How can you do that? Thusly: One may question how you can do that.

3. Dash. This is the form of punctuation that I – someone who generally follows convention – have been accused of overusing. I believe the dash – which is different from a hyphen – is a great way to set off parenthetical thoughts without using a parenthesis.

2. Comma. It provides breaks and breaths in your sentences. In fact, commas provide breaks, breaths and indicate the start and end of quotes. I am a strong opponent of the "Oxford" or "serial" comma, which nonsensically appears before the word "and" in a list. I follow Associated Press style: There is no comma before "and," except when items in a list include the word "and."

1. Period. The oxygen of the writing world. When your elementary school teacher lectured about semicolons and commas, the only thing you really had to know to use was the period. You can write sentences and get your point across without anything but a period. It's the most important punctuation mark. Period.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor who is pretty sure he made a punctuation mistake in this column that will be mocked. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.