Eats, Shoots & Leaves
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| Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation | |
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| Author | Lynne Truss |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | English grammar |
| Genre(s) | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Profile Books |
| Publication date | November 6, 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 228 pp. |
| ISBN | 1-86197-612-7 |
| OCLC Number | 55019487 |
| Dewey Decimal | 428.2 22 |
| LC Classification | PE1450 .T75 2003 |
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation is a non-fiction book written by Lynne Truss, the former host of the BBC Radio 4's Cutting a Dash programme. In the book, published in 2003, Truss bemoans the state of punctuation in the United Kingdom and the United States, and describes how rules are being relaxed in today's society. Her goal is to remind readers of the importance of punctuation in the English language by mixing humour and instruction.
Truss dedicates the book "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."
Contents |
[edit] Overview
There is one chapter each on apostrophes and on commas, one on semicolons and colons, one on exclamation marks, question marks, and quotation marks, italic type, dashes, brackets, ellipses, and emoticons, and one on hyphens. Truss touches on varied aspects of the history of punctuation and includes many anecdotes, which add another dimension to her explanations of grammatical rules. In the book's final chapter, she explains the importance of maintaining punctuation rules and addresses the damaging effects of e-mail and the Internet on punctuation.
Irish-American author Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, wrote the foreword to the U.S. edition of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. In keeping with the general lighthearted tone of the book, he praises Truss for bringing life back into the art of punctuation, adding, "If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood."
The book was a huge commercial success. In 2004, the U.S. edition became a New York Times bestseller. Contrary to usual publishing convention, the U.S. edition of the book left the original British conventions intact.
[edit] Title
The title of the book is an amphibology—a verbal fallacy arising from an ambiguous grammatical construction—and derived from a joke on bad punctuation:
A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
'Well, I'm a panda', he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'
[edit] Criticism
In a 2004 review, Louis Menand of The New Yorker pointed out several dozen punctuation errors in the book, including one in the dedication, and wrote that "an Englishwoman lecturing Americans on semicolons is a little like an American lecturing the French on sauces. Some of Truss's departures from punctuation norms are just British laxness."[1] Truss's book is also one of the bêtes noires of the popular linguistics blog Language Log.[2]
Some commentators have pointed out that, in the book's subtitle, the adjectival phrase "zero-tolerance" should have a hyphen.[citation needed]
In The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot and Left (OUP 2006), linguist David Crystal analyses the linguistic purism of Truss and other writers through the ages.[3]
In 2006, English lecturer Nicholas Waters released Eats, Roots & Leaves, criticising the "grammar fascists" who "want to stop the language moving into the 21st century."[4][5]
[edit] Parody
A parody of Eats, Shoots & Leaves entitled Eats, Shites & Leaves: Crap English and How to Use it, by "A. Parody", was published in London by Michael O'Mara Books Limited in 2004.[6]
[edit] Editions
- Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, London: Profile Books, 2003 ISBN 1-86197-612-7 (UK hardcover)
- Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. New York: Gotham Books, 2004 ISBN 1-59240-087-6 (US hardcover)
- Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. London: Profile Books, 2004 ISBN 1-86197-612-7 (Paperback, special Indian edition)
- Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. New York: Gotham Books, 2006 ISBN 1-592-40203-8 (Paperback with Punctuation Repair Kit)
- Lynne Truss and Pat Byrnes (illustrator). Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Illustrated Edition. New York: Gotham Books, 2008 ISBN 978-1-592-40391-2 (US, Special Edition)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Bad Comma: Lynne Truss's strange grammar by Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 28 June 2004.
- ^ For a list of posts referring to Truss, see this page.
- ^ "Author takes on the queen of commas", David Smith, The Observer Sunday 3 September 2006.
- ^ "Taking on Grammar Fascists"
- ^ War of Words (from Bournemouth Echo)
- ^ Amazon.co.uk: Eats, Shites & Leaves: Crap English and How to Use It: Antal Parody: Books
