#6: Eats, Shoots & Leaves

I just finished Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss.  This book was mentioned to me by Wesley's allergist, who has an obsession with punctuation while dictating his allergy notes.  This is a book about using correct punctuation and some of the history behind it.

While I find myself, somewhat interested in grammar, I can't say I am a true "stickler" as Truss calls them.  There are certain grammar errors that make me cringe, and others that I may glance right over.  In this book, Truss talks a lot about apostrophes and commas.  She also gets into other areas, such as colons, semicolons, and hyphens; that I am not as familiar with.  (I just read the book and I still don't know what should come after hyphen.)

I found some of the book entertaining and some kind of boring.  It had some like little facts that I never knew.  Did you know Starbursts were orignially called Opal Fruits?  She also seemed to have a lot of slams at American punctuation.  While I know there are lots of people who don't use grammar and punctuation correctly in America, I don't think she should say it's wrong just because we don't do things the same as the English people.  Towards the end she actually gave Americans some praise for their formal letter punctuation.

Anyway.  This book was interesting.  I can see why Dr. Brown would refer to it as "his favorite book that he really wouldn't recommend, because it's kind of boring".  If you are at all interested in grammar and punctuation- you should give this a read!!  (Note to self:  limit use of explanation points and dashes.)

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