The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

238 Pages·2016·2.16 MB·English

by  Truss Lynne

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&
Eats, Shoots Leaves
The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
LYNNE TRUSS
GOTHAM BOOKS
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Published by Gotham Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Originally published in Great Britain in 2003 by Profile Books, Ltd.
First American Electronic Edition, April 2004

Copyright © 2003 by Lynne Truss
Foreword copyright © 2004 by Frank McCourt
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MSR ISBN: 0-7865-4632-8
AEB ISBN: 0-7865-4633-6

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11261.01 2/13/04 8:44 AM Page v
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
RussianRevolution
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Contents
Foreword by Frank McCourt xi
Publisher’s Note xv
Preface xvii
Introduction – The Seventh Sense 1
The Tractable Apostrophe 35
That’ll Do, Comma 68
Airs and Graces 103
Cutting a Dash 132
A Little Used Punctuation Mark 168
Merely Conventional Signs 177
Bibliography 205
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Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the many writers on punctuation
who did all the hard work of formulating the clear
rules I have doubtless muddied in this book. G. V.
Carey’s Mind the Stop(1939) and Eric Partridge’s You
Have a Point There(1953) are acknowledged classics;
modern writers such as David Crystal, Loreto Todd,
Graham King, Keith Waterhouse, Tim Austin,
Kingsley Amis, Philip Howard, Nicholson Baker,
William Hartston and R. L. Trask were all inspira-
tional. Special thanks go to Cathy Stewart, Anne
Baker and Gillian Forrester; also to Penny Vine, who
set me off on this journey in the first place. Nigel
Hall told me the panda joke; Michael Handelzalts
told me about the question mark in Hebrew; and
Adam Beeson told me where to find the dash on my
keyboard. Learned copy-editors have attempted to
• ix •
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eats, shoots & leaves
sort out my commas and save me from embarrass-
ment. I thank them very much. Where faults obsti-
nately remain, they are mine alone. Finally, I would
like to thank Andrew Franklin for his encouraging
involvement along the way, and the hundreds of
readers who generously responded to articles in The
Daily Telegraph, The Author and Writers’ News. It was
very good to know that I was not alone.
• x •