Mind the Comma: Eats Shoots & Leaves
Ranked #11,288 in Books, Poetry & Writing, #399,691 overall
What is Eats Shoots & Leaves all about?
Eats Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss is a hilarious zero tolerance punctuation guide. Have you ever mixed up your "it's" with "its"? Or confused with whether to put a comma before an and or not? Then this is the book you need to buy.
Picture courtesy: Ned Horton
From the book
[This book is dedicated] To the memory of the striking Bolshevik printers of St Petersburg who, in 1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for punctuation marks as for letters, and thereby directly precipitated the first Russian Revolution
Eats Shoots & Leaves - Central Theme
If I had a choice of learning I would rather laugh and learn. Forget all those drab and dull grammar books doling out grammar rules to memorize. Here's is a book that you will remember long after you have finished reading. Besides, you will also have become sensitive to the use of punctuations. That is a bonus.
Why are punctuations so important? Consider the following sentences:
"Now I must go and get on my lover."
"Now I must go and get on, my lover."
A simple comma makes a world of difference.
Here's another set:
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
Point made!
Besides, if anything is worth doing it is worth doing well. So , if you want to communicate in English, you might as well give it your best shot.
From the book
The reason it's worth standing up for punctuation is not that it's an arbitrary system of notation known only to an over-sensitive elite who have attacks of vapours when they see it misapplied. The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning. Punctuation herds word together, keeps others apart.
Eats Shoots & Leaves - Ratings and Recommendation
Style: Hilarious. You will actually laugh out loud. However, the focus is never lost. Easy read.
Knowledge content: Good. You will learn a great deal about punctuations.
Applicability: You will be able to use the knowledge immediately. At the least, your official e-mail quality will improve.
Recommendation: Buy it. Something that your full family can read. Yes, school going to children to grandpas. You will not regret it.
From the book
[Humorist James] Thurber was once asked by a correspondent: "Why did you have a comma in the sentence, 'After dinner, the men went into the living-room'?" And his answer was probably the loveliest things ever said about punctuation. "This particular comma," Thurber explained, was [New Yorker editor] Ross's way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up."
Buy it here
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