Correctly punctuated ("Eats shoots and leaves"), the phrase describes a panda's favorite meal. An extraneous comma suggests that a panda employs firearms after its meal and before its exit. The poor punctuation of "Eats, Shoots & leaves" (the title not the book) misrepresents the characteristics of a panda. It's important because the meaning of a sentence can change dramatically, depending on the punctuation: "Extra-marital sex" does not mean the same as "Extra marital sex" It’s a difficult task because punctuation rules are sometimes vague and open to interpretation and because the rules are often broken by respected writers and because the rules change in a living language like English.īut Truss does her best to clarify the vagaries and to evangelize the static, unambiguous rules. For example, her book lists 17 distinct uses for the comma.
Truss lists the proper usages of that punctuation and some common, and annoying, violations of those rules. For each punctuation mark in question, Ms. The book devotes a full chapter to the use and abuse of the apostrophe another to the comma a third to the dash and so on. Truss, I agree on the importance of punctuation, particularly in public or professional communication but I don't always know the correct rules, so her advice is useful. She put together "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" - a small volume designed to clarify the proper usage of punctuation in the English language and to pursuade us that it is important.
She agonizes each time she sees "its" and "it's" misused.
I know that it pains her to see such misuse of common punctuation in public places. I don't know if she wanders the streets with a marker to add missing apostrophes - such as on posters for the movie Two Weeks Notice or with white stickers to conceal extraneous punctuation - such as in a store signs that read "Boat Motor's", but I know that she is tempted to do so. Lynnne Truss is a stickler - a stickler for proper punctuation.
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