Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

Register Log in
  • Congratulations SkipVought on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Eats, Shoots & Leaves 1

Status
Not open for further replies.
The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynne Truss

Synopsis
A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter. 'Why?' groaned the injured man. The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out. And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation. 'Panda,' ran the entry for his assailant. 'Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'
Click to expand...
Has anyone read this book? I haven't yet, but I am posting it here just in case someone is interested. Sounds fun...

 
Click to expand...
I've sent a feedback through the World Wide Words sit which describes the problem.



Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!
 
Got it, read it, enjoyed it.
 
I've got a copy, read it in one sitting and enjoyed it.

Rosie
"Never express yourself more clearly than you think" (Niels Bohr)
 
Thanks, good reviews.

Here is another one:

Menand certainly has one explicit objection to the book's Englishness. He points out that it has not been altered for its American edition, and is "virtually useless for American readers". They order things differently over there. ...the title of Truss's book, according to American grammatical mores, should have a comma before the "&": Eats, Shoots, & Leaves. So are those American readers poor saps, duped into buying a guide to a language they do not write?
Click to expand...
 
Looks like Professor Menand has started a war.

The professor declared: "An Englishwoman lecturing Americans on semicolons is a little like an American lecturing the French on sauces."
Click to expand...

And Mr Franklin, the Director of Profile Books, replied:
"I think it is partly xenophobia and partly a fit of pique.

"He has a chronic humour deficit and he is incapable of getting the joke. We have medically analysed the piece and we think he has a twisted colon."
Click to expand...
 
Incidentally in the US - Eats, shoots and leaves is correctly punctuated to make the point. The eats, shoots, and leaves usage is no longer in vogue and hasn't been for a good 20 years. It certainly is not virtually useless for American readers!

This is a great book.

Questions about posting. See faq183-874
 
Couldn't agree more!
 
Australian's have a similar punch line for wombats.
I wonder which came first?
 
Sorry, didn't get to all the posts before I suggested "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top