Lynne Truss is my hero!

It makes me so happy that someone else gets as irritated about incorrect punctuation as I do. I wish I had bought this book sooner - my life is better now.

Zero Tolerance

I have used that phrase previously to bemoan the lack of verity in the claims made by the TCDSB that they promote such a policy toward violence and bullying in their schools. This time, however, I found the phrase in the sub-title of a book I just finished reading. The little volume titles itself , Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. It is written by Lynne Truss and includes a foreword by Frank McCourt, of "Angela's Ashes" fame.

The book jacket makes the somewhat difficult-to-believe claim that the work is "The Runaway #1 British Bestseller". If it is, indeed, as the jacket claims, then there are far too many Brits who need to broaden their reading horizons. I read the book because someone had loaned it to me, but if I had been expected to pay for it, then I'm afraid I simply would never have encountered its content firsthand.

There are 204 pages for you to make your way through, each one with large margins to left and right, bottom and top of the page. The font is perhaps a little larger than that of many a book, and yet, even with all of the aforementioned, the book is still too long by approximately 154 pages.

Truss does give some humourous real-life examples of the pandemic pandemonium attendant on misuse of punctuation. "Dicks in tray", for instance, can give you an idea of the mayhem that could result from a misplaced apostrophe. There were other instances, however, where the humour jumped out at me even though I don't think Truss actually intended any. The number one use of the exclamation mark, says she, is in "involuntary ejaculations". I can just picture it now ... a multitude of the little marks hovering anxiously over a conjugal bed.

Carrying on about such things as whether to place the period inside or outside a bracket, (and even whether or not to call it a bracket), or listing all 17 possible uses of the comma and 6 traditional uses of the exclamation mark just doesn't quite seem to justify this book's having 204 pages. Neither does it seem to be the stuff of which runaway bestsellers should be made.

There are one or two interesting little nuggets hidden in Truss' caviling and carping. She points out that punctuation as we know it (or don't know it) today, is a relative newcomer to the world of print. She gives dates and quotes from experts, such as Cassiodorus, who held forth in the 6th century. Referring to punctuation as "intensely powerful ju-ju", she talks about the earliest copies of scripture being unpunctuated, and how St. Jerome, who translated the Bible in the 4th century, "introduced a system of punctuation of religious texts". Then she directs the attention of the reader to the scene of the crucifixion, when Jesus turned to the thief at his side and made a promise. The problem is that, with the simple placement of a comma, the meaning of the passage can be dramatically altered. As Truss phrases it, "Huge doctrinal differences hang on the placing of this comma". The Protestant interpretation of the passage punctuates it thusly: "Verily, I say unto thee, This day thous shalt be with me in Paradise." The Catholics justify their concept of Purgatory by punctuating it so: "Verily I say unto thee this day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise." Ju-ju, indeed!

Frank McCourt opens his foreword by saying, "If Lynne Truss were Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood." I don't know about that, but I do know that if you suffer from insomnia, and prefer to find remedies that don't involve pill-popping, Truss' book is the answer for you. Crack open a copy of this one, and its soporific qualities will have you somnolent in no time.

(...)

A Promise is a Promis

The book "is the best defense of punctuation you'll ever read," according to the publisher. As a writer who needs all the help I can get with punctuation, I couldn't wait to get my copy.
Eagerly opening the book, I found I was expected to read: Acknowledgements (Well, eveybody knows that nobody reads Acknowledgements.) and the Foreword (Normally another pass, but this one is written by Frank McCourt.) Now the book? No, now a "Publisher's Note" followed by the Preface. We're eighteen pages into the book before we confront the first chapter and what is it called? Introduction!
The publisher promised me that I would find this 240 page book "amusing," and I'm not suggesting that these first thirty-four pages are not amusing or that they are not laced with good writing. But, I want some clear concise rules of punctuation. Maybe in the second chapter, The Tractable Apostrophe, but when the first page proved to be more of the same, I put the book down in frustration.
A couple of weeks later: What's this? It's still on the New York Times best seller list? All those people can't be wrong. Picking up the book again and turning once more to the second chapter, I was soon rewarded for giving the book a second chance. Beginning on page forty, are clear, concise rules for the use of the apostrophe.
Now, I wised up. The comma chapter begins on page sixty-eight, but the rules for use don't appear until page eighty-three. Having figured out the key to getting the real low down on punctuation, my frustration melted away.
I've even gone back and read the chapter beginnings and enjoyed learning about the conflict between Harold Ross and James Thurber over comma usage (pp 68-70). And, who knew that the English in addition to driving on the wrong side of the road, sometimes use punctuation differently than we do? Who would not be amused at the contrast between: "Am I looking at my dinner or the dog's?" and "Am I looking at my dinner or the dogs?" (p.26)
The author herself says, "So if this book doesn't instruct about punctuation, what does it do?...This one gives you permission to love punctuation." (p. 33)