Funny and educational
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This books is far more than its title's amusing amphibology. It's funny, educational and very readable.
I work in software engineering and like many software engineers, I frequent the spelling and grammar checker. I frequent it regularly. In fact, my life would be quite tough without it.
Now in software engineering, there's nothing worse than looking at awful code that doesn't follow anything close to a resemblance of normal engineering standards. It's a surreal feeling that has this offensive nauseousness about it. The frustrations are simply indescribable to anybody who hasn't had the misfortune to work in the industry. Now, we software engineers sometimes think we are alone in experiencing these emotions, as perhaps they are the result of our innate pedantic propensities. We think the rest of human species don't suffer as much as we do. I mean who else has to look at spaghetti code?
So, it really made me laugh to hear Lynne Truss describe her innate frustations and intolerance of poor punctuation.
The English language, just like Software Engineering, has a clear logical set of punctuation rules. We just seem too ignorant and lazy to follow them. The English language, again just like Software Engineering, has its purists (or sticklers in Truss lexicon) whose stomachs squelch coming across asinine errors and sooner or later the pedant's affliction will manifest.
Truss navigates through every punctutation edifice. The comma, the apostrophe, the dash and all the usual suspects are explained clearly, succintly and with the utmost deference. Each one getting its own separate chapter. She shows acumen, acuity and peppers explainations with quirky and funny anecdotes of incorrect usage.
But it's Truss' reaction and feelings to poor punctuation that make this book funny. She's absolutely livid. Anyone with even a small bit of pendantry about anything at all will empathise and laugh.
My appreciation English of punctuation grew from reading this book. I'll still make errors - no doubt a few are in this review!
But it's a very good book. My only critism would be that I felt it was a little bit on the short side. A few edits and it would have been no more than an appendix in a grammar book or a good quality dictionary. But you certainly wouldn't get the laughs in such an appendix!
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You can't help cheering it on, because it has done such a good job in its humble way
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How does a book about how to use commas and colons properly have lodged itself at No 1 on bestseller lists? Maybe Lynne Truss' books success shows that it is not just a few reactionaries who care. Truss agrees it's selling off the internet and stickler-types probably don't do their shopping on the internet. Lynne Truss wonders if there might be readers whose higher education has given them at least a guilty conscience about what they have not been taught, suddenly thinking that perhaps it does matter and I wouldn't mind knowing this stuff. Those copies stacked in Waterstone's might show that there are plenty of people who want to be, as Lynne Truss puts it, 'virtuous'.
While Truss says that 'despair' gave this book its impetus, she does not sound despairing either in print or in person. The title itself is a joke, about an irate panda who walks into a cafe, orders a sandwich, eats it, draws a gun and fires two shots into the air. The waiter finds the explanation for this erratic behavior in a badly punctuated wildlife manual which the bear leaves behind: Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference! tells you the rules, but is also full of jokes and anecdotes. It is a sort of celebration of punctuation. You can't help cheering it on, because it has done such a good job in its humble way. She speaks of the delights of the semi-colon with relish. She has listened to the man from the Apostrophe Protection Society (yes, it exists) but does not sound like a member of any such group. "I was so worried when I wrote the book that people would assume that anyone interested in this subject would be small-minded". --Lynne Truss.
I don't really know where punctuation is going. But this is a very good moment to look at it and see what state it's in. The internet and emails have come along very conveniently for people who didn't learn punctuation and can therefore get by. Punctuation helps give rhythm and a tone of voice to writing, and Truss thinks it no accident that readers of emails often find it difficult to pick up the tone of the person who's written it, with all those dashes. The grace notes get lopped off and it becomes very bald. So people start needing exclamation marks and capital letters, desperately trying to express a tone of voice.
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Lynne Truss Has Got A Little List
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As someday it may happen that a victim must be found,
She's got a little list -- she's got a little list
Of illiterate offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed!
There's the greengrocer's redundant and reviled apostrophe
Granting unapproved possession of the carrot and the pea --
All the dangling expectations when the commas aren't in pairs --
All the chaos that's created in semantical affairs --
All editors eliminating semis from your list --
They'd none of 'em be missed -- they'd none of 'em be missed!
She's got 'em on the list -- she's got 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed -- they'll none of 'em be missed.
There's the muzzy-headed journalist whose phrases roam like sheep,
Who thinks that commas don't exist -- she's got him on her list!
And the pedants whose subordinated clauses bring on sleep,
They never would be missed -- they never would be missed!
There's the manuscript that always gives infuriating pause
By the wrongful punctuation of the inoffensive clause,
And ambiguous intentions when a colon should be placed
But the author for some reason holds that mark in great distaste,
And the cavalier exclaimer who from screaming can't desist --
I don't think he'd be missed -- I'm sure he'd not be missed!
She's got him on the list -- she's got him on the list;
And I don't think he'd be missed -- I'm sure he'll not be missed!
And the sentences that ought to end but will not mind the stop
So the readers lose the gist -- she's got 'em on the list!
And the badly punctuated placard shilling for a shop,
They'd none of 'em be missed -- they'd none of 'em be missed.
And the foes of readability with dashes everywhere,
They inch along in fits and starts, they make you want to swear,
The intolerant authorities whose standards are not yours,
Those moral weaklings oozing indecision from their pores,
It's a stickler's job to see they all are placed upon the list,
For they'd none of 'em be missed -- they'd none of 'em be missed!
In homage to THE MIKADO; libretto by W.S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan.
Linda Bulger, 2008
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"Lynne Truss brings shame to grammar buffs" - THIS WOMAN DOES NOT REPRESENT US!
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All this shows us is that Lynne Truss really should get out more. I can sort of tolerate the snooty and condesending tone in which it's written (not to mention horrendously boring), but the personification of apostrophes really is a step too far. This book should've been called "An Attack Against Dyslexia, by an Obsessive Compulsive". A good friend of mine, a grammar buff no less, read it thinking it may be something that'd interest him. He too gave up a few pages in describing it as "Just irritating" and concluding "Lynne Truss brings shame to grammar buffs."
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Truss is great
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Who would think that a book about punctuation could make one laugh out loud? Lynne Truss does it for me. Her zero tolerance approach to punctuation is erudite, informative, challenging and funny. One learns about the Apostrophe Protection Society. Truss wants a militant approach to signs where the apostrophe is misused. She teaches us the origins of punctuation and the rules for commas, semicolons, colons, brackets etc. I learned about the Oxford comma and American rules for quotation marks. Most of the rules I learned at school in the fifties when English was taught well. But it was never such fun as this. L earn here about the Apostropher Royal and Aldus Manutius the Elder, 15th century father of punctuation. In these days of sloppy communication it is good to hear how important is proper attention to punctuation. It has started a war and was used to try and save a man from the gallows. It can alter the sense of sentences and even produce theological disputation. Truss tells it all. She is a delight to read. The only problem is you may now wonder if you are getting your writing right, particularly if you are a careless and poor typist like me.
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