Grammar Spot

The Comma Manifesto - Eats, Shoots & Leaves


"A panda goes into a café, orders a sandwich, eats it, takes out a revolver, fires it into the air, and goes out. When the waiter calls to ask what is going on, the panda plunks a badly punctuated wildlife manual onto the table and growls: "Look me up." ....
...The waiter finds the entry: "PANDA. Large, black-and-white, bear-like mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.""
Far from being a text on Pandas, Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a roaming, raving and sometimes ranting manifesto of comma violations across the English language - mostly from those who should know better. The author, Lynne Truss, also takes aim at the flagrant, inconsistent (and usually public) mis-use of apostrophes. She welcomes all of us to the Apostrophe Protection Society, a real organization that (along with Truss) is horrified by commercial signs that announce "Antique's" or "Apple's".
One of my personal favorites is the difference between - "Let's eat, mother" and "Let's eat mother".
It's all in the comma....
Or consider the classic romantic note below:
Dear John:
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy--will you let me be yours?
Jane
As opposed to -
Dear John:
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jane
Yes, it is all in those pesky little punctuation marks.
The current edition of Eats, Shoots & Leaves also includes an Emergency Punctuation Repair kit - stickers of commas and apostrophes to place over signs you might see. As Lynne Truss says - "Sticklers Unite!" It's available from Gotham Books (a division of Penguin Group).
For examples of mangled English not necessarily related to punctuation, check out http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-497544/Chinglish-Hilarious-examples-signs-lost-translation.html or http://fun-in-language.blogspot.com/2007/11/hilarious-chinglish-signs.html