Being known where I used to work as something of a grammar nerd, this is a lady after my own heart. Her most famous book here in the U.S. (she’s a Brit) is Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (2003). As someone who groans and shakes my head every time I see a sign where an apostrophe is used incorrectly (plural instead of possessive and vice versa) I knew the first time I saw this book I had to have it. It lives on the shelf with other books of its ilk by William Safire, Edwin Newman, Richard Lederer, and E.B. White. May I also confess without reprisal that I love puns?
Here's the relevant story of the title explaining why punctuation matters:
“A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats, it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. ‘Why?’ asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. ‘I’m a panda,’ he says at the door. ‘Look it up.’ The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.’”
A radio host, a columnist, a former sports reporter, and author of plays and mystery novels, Lynne Truss goes far beyond telling us how to format language. She uses it to educate and entertain and make us think. Her 2005 book Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door takes on the state of manners, or the lack thereof. (I wonder what she thinks of the state of incivility in the world now.) She has also published collections of her newspaper columns and radio monologues. Some of her books and CDs are available here and it’s well worth the effort to find them.
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