It is a witty and entertaining read perfect for those like me who start hyperventilating and breaking out in hives at the misuse of commas, apostrophes, and semi-colons.
This book is a must-read for all the grammar and punctuation sticklers out there. (Should I be seeking therapy for this? The bills will, of course, go to the aforementioned teacher.) “Why did the Apostrophe Protection Society not have a militant wing? Could I start one? Where do you get balaclavas?” And then developed a strong desire to join a militant wing of the Apostrophe Protection Society. And had a very enjoyable few hours reading the creation of a fellow grammar stickler.
But I am ok with being pathetic.) And then I found this book. Ah, never mind, I don't have a valid defense. In my defense, she is a language teacher. Sometimes I discuss punctuation when I talk to my mother on the phone*. This was the beginning of my grammar vigilante stickler life. This crime landed me on her "black list" for the rest of the year. My transgression - in my wide-eyed seven-year-old innocence I dared to correct my (very Soviet) teacher on her comma placement and a spelling mistake. I am kicked out of the classroom and sent home with an angry note. The setting is an ordinary Soviet elementary school, first grade. I proudly consider myself a punctuation martyr. Now, instead of peacefully munching, it EATS, SHOOTS, and LEAVES. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to Sir Roger Casement "hanged on a comma" from George Orwell shunning the semicolon to Peter Cook saying Nevile Shute's three dots made him feel "all funny", this book makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with.Bad punctuation can force an innocent animal to live outside the law. This is the book for people who love punctuation and get upset about it. "You have nothing to lose but your sense of proportion - and arguably you didn't have much of that to begin with." If there are only pendants left who care, then so be it. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss dares to say that, with our system of punctuation patently endangered, it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them for the wonderful and necessary things they are. "Pansy's ready," we learn to our considerable interest ("Is she?"), as we browse among the bedding plants. "Its Summer!" says a sign that cries out for an apostrophe, "ANTIQUE,S," says another, bizarrely. Everyone knows the basics of punctuation, surely? Aren't we all taught at school how to use full stops, commas and question marks? And yet we see ignorance and indifference everywhere.
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