Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
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"A bona fide publishing phenomenon, Lynne Truss’s now classic #1 New York Times bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves makes its paperback debut after selling over 3 million copies worldwide in hardcover. We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the Internet, in e-mail, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing... The New York Times Eats, Shoots & Leaves takes its title from a mispunctuated phrase about a panda. In Britain, where this rib-tickling little book has been a huge success and its panda joke apparently recited in the House of Lords, Ms. Truss has proved to be anything but a lone voice. Despite her assertion that "being burned as a witch is not safely enough off the agenda" for the punctuation-minded stickler, Ms. Truss obviously hit a raw nerve. For those who are tired of seeing signs like "Bobs' Motors" and think an "Eight Items or Less" checkout sign should read "Eight Items or Fewer," boy, is this book for you. — Janet Maslin
ForewordPublisher's notePrefaceIntroduction - the seventh sense1The tractable apostrophe35That'll do, comma68Airs and graces103Cutting a dash132A little used punctuation mark168Merely conventional signs177Bibliography205
