5 Ways to Celebrate National Grammar Day

(MoneyWatch)  Today is National Grammar Day.

Why should you care about grammar, which seems like such a dusty, musty trifle in this age of texting?

As a practical matter, employers care a lot. Grammar could also be standing in your teenager's way of getting into his or her dream school. Grammar accounts for two-thirds of the writing score on the SAT test and more than half on the English ACT score.

If you could use a grammar refresher, here are five painless resources to check out on National Grammar Day:

Twitter. If you can only handle grammar lessons in small (140-character) doses, check out top grammarians on Twitter: @APstylebook, and @FakeAPStylebook. The fake version is vastly more popular than the real thing.

Grammarlogues: This software relies on (or is it upon?) the writings of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners to teach more than 200 grammar rules. The grammarians pull text excerpts from novels, poems, magazines and newspaper articles.

Grammar Girl. This blog serves up quick and dirty tips for correct grammar and better writing.

Five Easy Ways to Learn Grammar With The New York Times. The Gray Lady "provides a panoply of grammar concepts that rivals any handbook."

English Grammar for Dummies. The second edition of this very popular book was released just in time for National Grammar Day.

Lynn O'Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes at TheCollegeSolutionBlog. Follow her on Twitter.