'If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood.' Frank McCourtThe international bestseller, reissued and with a new introduction. A witty, entertaining, impassioned guide to perfect punctuation, for everyone who cares about precise writing. When social histories come to be written of the first decade of the 21st century, people will note a turning point in 2003 when declining standards of punctuation were reversed. Linguists will record Lynne Truss as the saviour of the semi-colon and the avenging angel of the apostrophe.'This book will stimulate and satisfy. It's worth its weight in gold.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent'A witty, elegant and passionate book that should be on every writer's shelf.' Observer'Lynne Truss deserves to be piled high with honours.' John Humphrys'It can only be a matter of time before the new government seizes the chance to appoint her as minister for punctuation. The manifesto is already written.' Guardian'She's a soul sister. She's one of us.' Richard Madeley
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Lynne Truss. Eats, Shoots and Leaves
LYNNE TRUSS. Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Introduction – The Seventh Sense
The Tractable Apostrophe
That’ll Do, Comma
Airs and Graces
Cutting a Dash
A Little Used Punctuation Mark
Merely Conventional Signs
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By the same author
From the reviews of Eats, Shoots & Leaves:
About the Publisher
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The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
FOURTH ESTATE • London
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Luckily for me, I was exceptionally interested in English and got there in the end. While other girls were out with boyfriends on Sunday afternoons, getting their necks disfigured by love bites, I was at home with the wireless listening to an Ian Messiter quiz called Many a Slip, in which erudite and amusing contestants spotted grammatical errors in pieces of prose. It was a fantastic programme. I dream sometimes they have brought it back. Panel-lists such as Isobel Barnett and David Nixon would interrupt Roy Plomley with a buzz and say “Tautology!” Around this same time, when other girls of my age were attending the Isle of Wight Festival and having abortions, I bought a copy of Eric Partridge’s Usage and Abusage and covered it in sticky-backed plastic so that it would last a lifetime (it has). Funny how I didn’t think any of this was peculiar at the time, when it was behaviour with “Proto Stickler” written all over it. But I do see now why it was no accident that I later wound up as a sub-editor with a literal blue pencil.
But to get back to those dark-side-of-the-moon years in British education when teachers upheld the view that grammar and spelling got in the way of self-expression, it is arguable that the timing of their grammatical apathy could not have been worse. In the 1970s, no educationist would have predicted the explosion in universal written communication caused by the personal computer, the internet and the key-pad of the mobile phone. But now, look what’s happened: everyone’s a writer! Everyone is posting film reviews on Amazon that go like this:
