Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Encyclopedia
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."
s, one on semicolon
s and colon
s, one on exclamation mark
s, question mark
s, and quotation mark
s, italic type
, dash
es, bracket
s, ellipses
, and emoticon
s, and one on hyphen
s. 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 opines on 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 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.
—a verbal fallacy arising from an ambiguous grammatical construction—and derived from a joke on bad punctuation:
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."
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.
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." This view was shared by dyslexic English comedian and satirist Marcus Brigstocke
in a 2007 episode of Room 101
, in which he blames Truss's book for starting off a trend in which people have become "grammar bullies," who were later put into Room 101.
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
book written by Lynne Truss
Lynne Truss
Lynne Truss is an English writer and journalist, best known for her popular book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.-Early life:...
, the former host of the BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
's Cutting a Dash programme. In the book, published in 2003, Truss bemoans the state of punctuation
Punctuation
Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences...
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
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
by mixing humour and instruction.
Truss dedicates the book "to the memory of the striking Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
printers of St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
who, in 1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for punctuation marks as for letters, and thereby directly precipitated the first Russian Revolution."
Overview
There is one chapter each on apostrophes and on commaComma (punctuation)
The comma is a punctuation mark. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline of the text. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight but inclined from the vertical, or...
s, one on semicolon
Semicolon
The semicolon is a punctuation mark with several uses. The Italian printer Aldus Manutius the Elder established the practice of using the semicolon to separate words of opposed meaning and to indicate interdependent statements. "The first printed semicolon was the work of ... Aldus Manutius"...
s and colon
Colon (punctuation)
The colon is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line.-Usage:A colon informs the reader that what follows the mark proves, explains, or lists elements of what preceded the mark....
s, one on exclamation mark
Exclamation mark
The exclamation mark, exclamation point, or bang, or "dembanger" is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume , and often marks the end of a sentence. Example: “Watch out!” The character is encoded in Unicode at...
s, question mark
Question mark
The question mark , is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence in English and many other languages. The question mark is not used for indirect questions...
s, and quotation mark
Quotation mark
Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...
s, italic type
Italic type
In typography, italic type is a cursive typeface based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, such typefaces often slant slightly to the right. Different glyph shapes from roman type are also usually used—another influence from calligraphy...
, dash
Dash
A dash is one of several kinds of punctuation mark. Dashes appear similar to hyphens, but differ from them primarily in length, and serve different functions. The most common versions of the dash are the en dash and the em dash .-Common dashes:...
es, bracket
Bracket
Brackets are tall punctuation marks used in matched pairs within text, to set apart or interject other text. In the United States, "bracket" usually refers specifically to the "square" or "box" type.-List of types:...
s, ellipses
Ellipsis
Ellipsis is a series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word, sentence or whole section from the original text being quoted. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence...
, and emoticon
Emoticon
An emoticon is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. The word is a portmanteau word...
s, and one on hyphen
Hyphen
The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...
s. 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 opines on the importance of maintaining punctuation rules and addresses the damaging effects of e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
and the Internet on punctuation.
Irish-American author Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes
Angela's Ashes
Angela's Ashes is a 1996 memoir by the Irish-American author Frank McCourt. The memoir consists of various anecdotes and stories of Frank McCourt's impoverished childhood and early adulthood in Brooklyn, New York and Limerick, Ireland, as well as McCourt's struggles with poverty, his father's...
, 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 commercial success. In 2004, the U.S. edition became a New York Times bestseller
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
. Contrary to usual publishing convention, the U.S. edition of the book left the original British conventions intact.
Title
The title of the book is an amphibologyAmphibology
Amphibology or amphiboly is an ambiguous grammatical structure in a sentence. -Examples:*Teenagers shouldn't be allowed to drive...
—a verbal fallacy arising from an ambiguous grammatical construction—and derived from a joke on bad punctuation:
Criticism
In a 2004 review, Louis MenandLouis Menand
Louis Menand is an American writer and academic, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Metaphysical Club , an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America....
of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
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."
In The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot and Left (OUP
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
2006), linguist David Crystal
David Crystal
David Crystal OBE FLSW FBA is a linguist, academic and author.-Background and career:Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. He grew up in Holyhead, North Wales, and Liverpool, England where he attended St Mary's College from 1951....
analyses the linguistic purism
Linguistic purism
Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is the practice of defining one variety of a language as being purer than other varieties. The ideal of purity is often opposed in reference to a perceived decline from an "ideal past" or an unwanted similarity with other languages, but sometimes simply...
of Truss and other writers through the ages.
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." This view was shared by dyslexic English comedian and satirist Marcus Brigstocke
Marcus Brigstocke
Marcus Alexander Brigstocke is an English comedian, actor and satirist who has worked extensively in stand-up comedy, television, radio and in 2010-2011 musical theatre. He is particularly associated with the 6.30pm comedy slot on BBC Radio 4, having frequently appeared on several of its shows...
in a 2007 episode of Room 101
Room 101 (TV series)
Room 101 is a BBC comedy television series based on the radio series of the same name, in which celebrities were invited to discuss their pet hates and persuade the host to consign them to a fate worse than death in Room 101, named after the torture room in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is...
, in which he blames Truss's book for starting off a trend in which people have become "grammar bullies," who were later put into Room 101.
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.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)
See also
- Standard EnglishStandard EnglishStandard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
- Linguistic prescriptionLinguistic prescriptionIn linguistics, prescription denotes normative practices on such aspects of language use as spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. It includes judgments on what usages are socially proper and politically correct...
- Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein TodDer Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein TodDer Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod is a series of books by Bastian Sick which deal in an entertaining manner with areas of contention in grammar, orthography, and punctuation, and unappealing and clumsy uses of the German language.-Origins:The books are collections of the author’s column...