Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation Paperback – Bargain Price, April 11, 2006

This is a great fun book, and I really enjoyed reading it. It has been a while since I laughed so hard. Wait, should I have said, "This is a great, fun book"? When do we use Mrs. Comma?The author writes, "Punctuation has been defined many ways. Some grammarians use the analogy of stitching: punctuation as the basting that holds the fabric of language in shape. Another writer tells us that punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop." (p. 7).Punctuation can alter the sense of a string of words. Take the following example:A woman, without her man, is nothing.A woman: without her, man is nothing.The use of punctuation is like fashion; it has its moments. One day it might be fashionable to use a semi-colon; another day it might not! Wait a second! Did I use my punctuation right? Should there have been a semi-colon after the word semi-colon? What a conundrum! And talking of semi-colons, did you know that colon in Greek means a limb (hence part of a strophe. A strophe is the first of two movements made by a chorus during the performance of a choral ode, but you all knew that, didn't you)? So a semi-colon is a half limb. But wait a minute, does apostrophe come from strophe or the other way round? Or maybe there is no relation whatsoever? Open your dictionaries!Did you know that women use exclamation marks more than men! Wait, I really meant to put a question mark!Did you know that most punctuation marks were invented by the early printers? Punctuation can render the written word into the way we talk. For example, poses between words, marking thoughts...How about punctuation in text messages? Do any of us bother putting them? And how about in emails or while chatting on the internet, how do we use punctuation? Who invented the smileys and for what reason? Smileys are made of punctuation marks. For example, :-) is a smiley meaning a smiling face. Smileys are made of punctuation marks. Funny enough, I was looking for the plural of smiley (which I thought to be smilies) and could not find the word in either the Oxford or the Webster dictionary. I, however, was able to find it in the Collins and the American Heritage dictionary. I wonder why that is?! Hey, was that a correct usage of punctuation?!!!!!Here's a nice fact: a few years ago, the average age of email users was 20. It is now 30, and climbing. More and more of us are using email to communicate with each other, and more and more of us are at a loss of how to use punctuation properly, if any. Just look at all the punctuation mistakes I have made in this short review (please don't count the grammatical errors!!!!!).This is a book you will love reading, and you will find yourself with a smile on your face. This book does not intend to teach you. Rather, it informs you! Did you say women use exclamation marks more often than men?The title of the book came about from a dictionary definition of panda. According to the author, the dictionary defined panda as a bear-like animal that eats, shoots and leaves. On the cover of the book, you actually see a panda on a ladder erasing the comma after eats. The sentence should have correctly read, `a bear-like animal that eats shoots and leaves.' Well, no one is perfect. (I keep wondering whether I am using punctuation correctly. What hath this book done to me? I mean to me!!!!!)I highly recommend the audio version of this book as well. In fact, the book is based on the audio version. Throughout the audio you will hear interviews with punctuation professionals and secret societies with the sole goal of correcting punctuation mistakes. Really, no kidding! Well, maybe not that secret. One such society has as its goal to correct apostrophe mistakes. For example, its or it's? They actually write letters to editors and store owners (is that owner's?) making them aware of the correct usage of this infamous punctuation mark. Some store owners actually change their signposts to reflect the correct usage. But many don't. Amazing! Who said all secret societies are bad?Here's a fact: The English language first picked up the apostrophe in the 16th century. The word in Greek means "turning away", and hence "omission" or "elusion". In classical texts, it was used to mark dropped letters, as in t'cius for "tertius" (p. 37).O, before I forget, here's a useful insight: The American and British editions of this book use punctuation differently!Wait, before I go, here's another thought: hopefully the author won't read my review and use me as an example of how horrible my punctuation is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lynne Truss writes a wickedly funny treatise on the death-- if we, the faithful who care about apostrophes, are not armed and ready to fight the barbarians-- of punctuation as we know it. Of course, her dilemma is that only people who care about correct punctuation are the ones who will read this fascinating book. Those who are most guilty will not or cannot read her.But for those of us who read this book there are wonderful tidbits. For example, Oliver Wendell Holmes said that We have to dismount from an idea and get back into the saddle again at every parenthesis while the writer Gertrude Stein found question marks the most uninteresting of all punctuation marks. F. Scott Fitzgerald said that the exclamation point (as it is known in America) is "like laughing at your own jokes." My favorite image from the book is that of the semicolon that "quietly practises the piano with crossed hands."For those of us who care, Ms. Truss gives a good review of the rules of punctution. She discusses thoroughly the correct use of all forms of punctuation, from the apostrophe to the hyphen, and compares the differences between British and American usage. She also discusses the blight that e-mail messages have brought on us all. "I keep thinking that what we do now, with this medium of instant delivery, isn't writing, and doesn't even qualify as typing either: it's just sending. What did you do today? Sent a lot of stuff."I fear that punctuation problems are worse on this side of the pond than they are in England. I attended a black tie event recently for over 300 people in which words large enough to be read from the back of the dinning hall were projected on a huge screen behind the speaker. The apostrophe was used over and over to express the plural, rather than the possessive of words. I felt as obsolete as a rotary telephone.