Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

I thought I would like this book. Boy howdy, was I wrong. Honestly, if the copy I read hadn't been the property of my local library, then I would have used it as compost already. Eats, Shoots & Leaves is written in a very divisive style. Readers will either laugh with their noses in the air at those who don't follow Lynne Truss's grammatical rules and pat themselves on the back for falling in line, or they'll be offended by Truss's purist take on the English language. What I found most irritating is that any worthwhile grammatical advice Truss gives her readers is prescribed in an utterly condescending and elitist tone. Essentially, her "high moral arguments" (202) amount to linguistic prescriptivism, a practice I am wholeheartedly show more against.

Oh, but I did love how she has the hypocritical gall to call those who haven't mastered (and don't want to master) the semicolon "pompous sillies" (109).

"I'm talking 'bout the man in the mirror/ I'm asking him to change his ways." - Michael Jackson
pot = kettle, or whatever.

While I'm on the subject of semicolons, who on earth thinks semicolons are too middle-class? Where did Truss get her research data for any of the "most common" excuses listed on pages 109-110? Probably, Truss should master the art of annotation and/or citing sources before she writes another reference book. show less

A delightfully written grammar guide that feels more like an extended conversation and rant rather than an attempt to teach, yet I learned so much!

When I see the title of this book, I want to add an Oxford comma after Shoots, so you could say that it is no surprise that I liked this book. It certainly is a good read about punctuation with many historical anecdotes, cultural factoids, and a whole lot of humor. I am not a stickler, but I certainly appreciate it when people use punctuation to communicate well; however, I do worry that, because of this book, more and more people will start punctuating well and there will be nothing to laugh at in street signs, billboards, and on the subway (and there goes the Oxford comma, again. Yes, the comma goes inside the parentheses in our neck of the woods. Should I have capitalized "and?" I know, one is not supposed to start a sentence with show more "and," but that's just the way I like it.)

ps. One of my favorite street signs in the U.S. is similar to one mentioned in the book; it reads:
Slow children at play show less

Every person who possesses an ounce of passion on any subject needs (1) friends who share similar passions and/or (2) a self-help book. Eats, Shoots & Leaves is my self-help book. Thank you, Lynne Truss, for reminding me that I'm not the only one who wants to start a murderous rampage when someone misuses an apostrophe. But most of all, thank you for encouraging—no, demanding—sticklers to unite. Language is a living, changing thing, but that doesn't mean it has to deteriorate back to the caveman days.

I'll admit I have many pet peeves – too many when I start to think about it. One of them is misused punctuation, which is especially prominent on handmade signs, be it at the front of grocery stores, on marquees, wherever. (A documentary I watched recently showed a sign inviting "employee's and families" to an event. Argh!) Lynne Truss shares that pet peeve, but unlike me she went and wrote a book about it. I could never have done so, since outside of obvious things like possessive apostrophes, I'm not very stringent with punctuation, especially commas. Truss is very strict in the use of punctuation, but also very clear, commonsensical and funny. The title, the cover and the "punctuation repair kit" inside the cover clearly indicate show more her sense of humor. Every so often I pick up a book on writing to improve my own. I'm glad I came across this one in a used bookstore. Even after reading it I keep it on my shelf at work as a handy reference when doubts about punctuation use spring up. show less

A fun little book about, of all thing, punctuation. Author Lynne Truss claims she goes about with white paint and markers correcting punctuation in signs. She’s particularly hard on excessive apostrophes, decrying the “greengrocer’s apostrophe”, as in “potato’s, turnip’s and rutabaga’s for sale”, but admits to pulling up short at “Carrot’s Fruits and Vegetables Stand”, which turned out to be owned by Reginald Carrot. A “Law of Conservation of Apostrophes” is suggested: For every apostrophe omitted from a contraction (“Its raining.”) an extra one is added to a possessive (“It’s weather is bad.”).


One of her interesting observation is punctuation was originally used for reading aloud; in fact Latin show more texts often included now extinct punctuation marks used to indicate duration of pauses and inflection: the only survivors of that lineage are commas, semicolons, and colons. (She notes the earliest Latin, however, not only had no punctuation marks; there were no spaces between words, leading to text much like “word search” puzzles where the reader had to stare at it for a while before suddenly receiving the sense in a sort of epiphany).


After initial complaints about poor punctuation, the bulk of the book discusses rules (while noting that commas are resistant to rigorous usage schemes). Truss cites cases where the presence or absence of a comma is vital:


Sir Roger Casement was an Irishman involved in the Easter Rebellion and accused of treason under an act dating to 1351. The phrase in question was “… if a man be adherent to the king’s enemies in his realm giving to them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere…”; the argument was Casement was not “adherent to the king’s enemies in his realm because all his plotting had been done in Germany. Careful examination of the original document found a tiny hint of a comma after the first “realm” and Casement was hanged.


On his deathbed author Graham Greene signed a document stating:


“I, Graham Greene, grant permission to Norman Sherry, my authorized biographer, excluding any other, to quote from my copyright material published or unpublished.”


The ambiguity is whether all other researchers are precluded from quoting material, or only other biographers. The current position of the curator at Georgetown University, where Greene’s papers were deposited, is nobody except Norman Sherry can consult the material at all. Truss notes attempts to use “formal” language creates semantic problems like this; if Greene had written “Don’t let anybody but Sherry see my stuff” or “Only Sherry can quote from it but otherwise all are welcome” the problem would be resolved.


Verily, I say onto thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.


Versus

Verily, I say onto thee this day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.


The first version is the Protestant reading, implying instantaneous admission to Heaven after death (or at least same day service); the second version is the Catholic one, allowing for a delay – Purgatory – on the way. People died over this one.


Truss writes light and lively prose. She notes – about Venetian printer Aldus Manutius the Elder, inventor of italic type and the semicolon – “I will happily admit I hadn’t heard of him until about a year ago but am now absolutely kicking myself that I never volunteered to have his babies.” After observing that Woodrow Wilson called the hyphen “un-American”, she provides a list of counter-examples:


Extra marital sex

Superfluous hair remover

Pickled herring merchant

Two hundred odd members of the Conservative party


And, if you’re unfamiliar with the title example:

A panda walks into a restaurant, orders a sandwich, devours it, produces a pistol, and shoots it in the air. The astonished waiter asks “Why?”. The panda tosses him a poorly punctuated wildlife manual and walks out. The waiter thumbs through to the definition of “panda”: “A black and white bear-like mammal native to China. Eats, shoots, and leaves.” show less

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I gave this book five stars, as it was clearly written by a true stickler who knows her stuff, cares passionately about grammar, and has a marvelous sense of humor. I share Truss' violent reaction upon seeing "its" in place of "it's" (and vice versa), and I realize that this response may be out of proportion. However, Truss recognizes this while also making a case for the importance of grammar and punctuation in written communication and in literature; without punctuation as our guide, we would be lost as to the meaning. Truss compares punctuation to musical notation; both provide guidance to the reader/speaker/singer/player as to intonation and volume. She also gives several examples wherein show more the placement of a comma, for example, alters the meaning of a sentence entirely (e.g. "eats, shoots and leaves" vs. "eats shoots and leaves"). Overall, a marvelous validation for grammarians with a sense of humor.

To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as "Thank God its Friday" (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. (43)

As with other paired bracketing devices (such as parentheses, dashes and quotation marks), there is actual mental cruelty involved, incidentally, in opening up a pair of commas and then neglecting to deliver the closing one. The reader hears the first shoe drop and then strains in agony to hear the second. In dramatic terms, it's like putting a gun on the mantelpiece in Act I and then having the heroine drown herself quietly offstage in the bath during the interval. (91)

Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail, 1979: But with the semicolon there you get a pleasant feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer. (114)

...the material on the internet is unmediated, except by the technology itself. And having no price, it has questionable value. (181) show less