... Pickfords' vans travelling at 20mph? Drivers weeping openly to sad music on their car stereos?
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves is not a book about grammar.", she says, "I am not a grammarian. To me a subordinate clause will for ever be (since I heard the actor Martin Jarvis describe it thus) one ... Read review
Advantages: Funny, and it learns ya. Disadvantages: However: it might make you feel obliged to start using colons and semicolons; and you still might not understand all the why's and wherefore's. (pu?)
...of a paperback edition of Eats, Shoot & Leaves as yet;
but the original Radio 4 series on which it was based: 'Cutting A Dash' (which is being repeated on BBC7 from February 28th) is available on CD or cassette for only £8.99.
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A few years ago, in the category 'How to Write Opinions', I offered the following advice with regards to punctuation: "Make it up as you go along - I do. After all: nobody knows what a semi-colon is used for anyway; so... just throw in anything that looks pretty, ok?"
I wasn't joking. I'm from the generation(s) who weren't taught grammar or punctuation in school. At least, not in English anyway. Our German teacher once started a lesson with the words: "Today we are going to learn about the dative case in German. You all know what the dative case is, don't you?" Erm...no, miss, never heard of it. She was somewhat put out. Actually it might have been the accusative case, but who cares?
Well, Lynn Truss probably would. In fact she had a similar experience herself because, even though she attended a grammar school a decade before I went to a bog-standard comprehensive, she wasn't taught punctuation or grammar either - except in Latin, French and German lessons. And yet she has become a stickler for punctuation.
Although, as she admits: "It's tough being a stickler for punctuation these days. One almost dare not get up in the mornings." Shopping must be a bit of a drag as well, as she refuses to use the 'eight items or less' checkouts because it should be 'fewer' not 'less'. ! I daresay she is as disappointed as I am that John Humphreys doesn't use the phrase: "the contestant with the fewer, or fewest, passes" on Mastermind, as Magnus Magnusson always did.
What really gets my goat is when people misspell a word and then put "(sp?)" after it. What they seem to be saying is: "I don't know how to spell that last word, but I want you to know that I know that I don't know, just so you know that I'm not completely stupid. Although, obviously, I am far too lazy to look it up or even use a spell-checker. In other words: I don't mind if you think I'm lazy, as long as you don't think I'm so ignorant I don't know how ignorant I am, because I do...I just can't be bothered to do anything about it." Peeple lik vat r idull ninkempoups (sp?).
It's a sign of the dumbed-down tabloidized-times that no-one is embarrassed at being seen to be ignorant and lazy, just so long as you don't think they are effing stoopid. Kingsley Amis would call them berks. According to him: "the world of grammar is divided into 'berks and wankers' - berks being those who are outrageously slipshod about language, and wankers those who are (in our view) abhorrently over-precise."
I guess I'm on the wanky side of that scale: I think punctuation should be about making things more convenient for the reader rather than the writer; but, like language itself, punctuation is bound to evolve over time. One change mentioned in this book is "the tendency of 'trendy publishers' to replace quotation marks with colons and dashes" - but that's fine by me: it can make passages of conversation easier on the eye, whereas quotation marks can look as fussy and old-fashioned as Grandma's antimacassars. But I digress...
Lynn Truss is a very witty writer and, while her desire for better punctuation is obviously heartfelt, her tongue is firmly in her cheek as well: "Why did the Apostrophe Protection Society not have a militant wing? Could I start one?" she quips at one point. Hence this book is as entertaining as it is enlightening - more so perhaps, which is why it doesn't really work as a reference book (so if that's what you're after you might want to look elsewhere).
Also its diddy size is a drawback at times as it makes for a pot- entially confusing lay- out because of the ex- tra hyphens which are required by the narrow width of the page.
Sometimes I was left almost more confused - like the grammar in this sentence is? For example, my last English teacher insisted that "however" should always be put at the beginning of a sentence and followed by a comma. I was sceptical about this, however. And now Lynn Truss tells me this:
"Linking words such as "however", "nevertheless", "also", "consequently" and "hence" require a semicolon - and, I have to say, this seems pretty self-evident to me."
Why a semi-colon? It's not pretty self-evident to me, however. Er, I mean: It's not pretty self-evident to me; however. Ugh no! I mean: However; It's not pretty self-evident to me. No, that doesn't look right either. Consequently(;-?) I'm going to ignore this advice just as soon as I've ended this sentence; I'm sure it's good advice, er, nevertheless.
Punctuation-wise I'm more of an Alex Higgins than a Ronnie O'Sullivan: I get in some terrible tangles and have to rely on spectacular potting to recover. I hoped that this book would improve my positional play; and, you never know, maybe after a few more reads it will; but I had to read some examples a couple of times to understand exactly what she meant. For example, I'm still not entirely sure how "slow moving traffic" (as opposed to "slow-moving traffic") could be mis-interpreted. Pickfords' vans travelling at 20mph? Drivers weeping openly to sad music on their car stereos?
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves is not a book about grammar.", she says, "I am not a grammarian. To me a subordinate clause will for ever be (since I heard the actor Martin Jarvis describe it thus) one of Santa's little helpers."
It is a bit though. Although perhaps not enough to sort me out. Sometimes I am beset by chronic indecision as to what's right and what's wrong or whether it matters.
And I'm now using far too many semi-colons. And now I'm using far too many semi-colons. And I'm using far too many semi-colons now. [Oh dear. Please delete as applicable.]
So there are things not covered in the book which I would like to have explained to me. Whether I was wrong to use 'which' in the last sentence rather than 'that', for example; but you can't have everything - where would you put it all?
Dear Lynn,
Is it "that" or "which" and when and why? Why does "will not" become "won't"? Who decides on the why's and wherefores? Or should that be the why's and wherefore's? And why? Or wherefore? And is there a difference between: "it's not" and "it isn't" - or not? Does anyone really know for sure?
Yours bewildered,
Phillip.
P.S. Why, when you seem to be obsessed with the sweets formerly known as Opal Fruits, did you never once mention the abomination that is 'Snickers' - surely the most heinous crime against the English language?
P.P.S. If you ever read this, please would you try not to be upset by my 'pretty' punctuation? Thanks.
There's no sign of a paperback edition of Eats, Shoot & Leaves as yet; but the original Radio 4 series on which it was based: 'Cutting A Dash' (which is being repeated on BBC7 from February 28th) is available on CD or cassette for only £8.99. ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ¶ 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' hardback..... £9.99 ¶ ISBN: 1861976127 ¶ pp 209 ¶ ¶ 'Cutting A Dash' CD......................... £8.99 ¶ ISBN: 0563525029 ¶ ¶ 'Cutting A Dash' cassette................. £8.99 ¶ ISBN: 0563525967 ¶ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Advantages: nicely presented, witty justification for sticklerdom Disadvantages: do I really want to read it more than once?
...examples are taken straight from Eats, Shoots & Leaves with the disclaimer that these can be matters of style and as such are perhaps not the main focus of concern.
Truss writes with a gentle, comic and enthusiastic style; she’s always prepared to be self-deprecating and confessional, but for the most part without too much of the pleading justification evident in, erm, this opinion. Her conversational intelligence puts me in mind of many an opinion ... ...bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
There are endless examples of this kind of thing peppered throughout the book, from the simplest error of the local greengrocer (Truss has something of an obsession with the greengrocer’s misplaced apostrophe) to more embarrassing public mistakes such as use of the word “childrens’” written by a representative of the NUT (that’s the National Union of Teachers, folks). I did not spot my ...
ruth_cole 19.01.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss
Advantages: Fun, informative, easy to read Disadvantages: None
...be – ENTERTAINING. Eats, Shoots and Leaves is very much a modern work, peppered with examples which include many elements of popular culture. Admittedly, many ‘old’ books and long-dead authors are referred to – Charles Dickens, George Bernard Shaw (or GBS, as she calls him!), Anton Chekhov et al – but just think of these as ‘vintage’, ‘classic’ or ‘retro’ if you find it a problem! But there are also references to Elton John, Hear’say*, Bill Gates, ... ...any new tips. Eats, Shoots and Leaves is ideal to read on bus rides or train journeys. It’s small and light and is a good book to be seen with! After all, it’s the Book of the Year 2004, no less. I was pleasantly surprised to discover how many people I knew had read this or were planning to. Anything which makes punctuation ‘trendy’ has got to be a good thing!
Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
(The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation)
...
KarenUK 19.02.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss
Advantages: Witty, fun for many Disadvantages: Makes me nervous to write reviews about it...
...gets the sense that it eats, then fires some kind of weapon, and then departs, rather than consuming bamboo and green, leafy things. Truss has a sardonic wit, recommending with British understatement the most horrific sentences for those who abuse their sentences. Truss has little patience (but quite a lot of fun) with common mistakes of the comma, apostrophe, quotation marks, and more. She has somewhat more sympathy for people who haven't learned ... ...semicolons, brackets and such. However, given the age of such things (some punctuation marks are a thousand years old), perhaps it is about time to start getting things write, er, right. This is not a long book, and is full of little pieces of wisdom -- to improve one's grammar is to improve one's life, Truss would hold. Certainly, the ability to communicate with language is a primary human quality; the ability to communicate well increases our own ...
frkurt 26.01.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss
Advantages: Highly entertaining, accurate, educative Disadvantages: may be too pedantic for some
...mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves”, it serves to illustrate the impact a single spurious or misplaced comma can have on the meaning of a phrase. Should we expect to see a panda come into a café, eat his lunch, then draw a gun and fire it before leaving? On the cover of the book, said anthropomorphised panda is seen up a ladder wielding a paintbrush to eliminate the spurious comma, a subtle link to a suggestion inside the book that ... ...necessary.
The book is well-structured with distinct chapters for use of:
• the apostrophe – the reader who absorbs this chapter is unlikely ever to contribute to the “satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes” that plague our lives today;
• the comma – covering 6 distinct ways in which commas are used for different purposes and including considerations such as whether punctuation should be inside or outside quotations;
• colons and semi-colons ...
Discerna 08.01.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss
Advantages: Funny, Educational, Easy to Read Disadvantages: None
...mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
Of course, there is a much ruder version of the joke involving the panda with a prostitute but the principle is the same: the panda eats shoots & leaves, he doesn't eat, then shoot something, then leave. (Bamboo shoots, if you're still looking blankly at that sentence.)
If the thought of 204 pages harping on about punctuation is enough to put you off buying the book I strongly urge you to reconsider. ... ...It's almost as if she is having some sort of comical rant about people's misuse of grammar but on her journey she manages to point out to us the error of our ways and even if you believe you're stunningly good with your punctuation - as I did - there is still something in here that you will learn.
So, if you're a pedantic punctuator who already knows their stuff then you'll enjoy this book and empathise with Truss; if you're a little flakey on where ...
markd_uk 28.09.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss
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Advantages: Well written, light reading. Disadvantages: Not my kind of thing - but it might be yours!
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? look at British media and society. He surveys the major changes that have affected us over the last half century or so and points out some of the benefits. But the main thrust of this book is to warn us that these forces threaten our freedom to think and act.
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