Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00775)

Since we were talking about grammar earlier, I was reminded about a 
delightful book title "Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance 
Approach to Punctuation."

You can see an excerpt from the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1592400876/ref=nosim/recommendations

As I recall, it is based on a joke about a Panda who walks into a 
restaurant, orders a meal, then when he finishes the meal, pulls out a 
gun, shoots the waiter, and departs.

The restaurant owner follows him outside and asks why he did it. The 
panda answers, "Just look it up in the dictionary" and hands him a book.

The owner looks up the entry for Panda, and finds the entry, "an animal 
which eats, shoots and leaves."

Of course, for all of us who know punctuation, that should be "an animal 
which eats shoots and leaves" (shoots and leaves are nouns when the 
comma is not there. With the comma, shoots and leaves are verbs.

It gives examples of the many abhorable things that people do with 
English. For example, many of us receive e-mails inviting us to 
"purchase CD's, VIDEO's, DVD's, and more". Grammatically, of course, 
that should be CDs, VIDEOs, DVDs and more."

You can read an excerpt from the book by clicking the link
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1592400876/ref=nosim/recommendations

and the author apparently has her own website, what else?
www.eatsshootsandleaves.com

For the sticklers in this group, a funny book to borrow from your 
library. It reached #1 in the UK shortly after it came out. I understand 
it's a popular book in the USA also.

Hopefully, nobody will use this book as an excuse to ask all of us to 
use punctuation better.

--
John, webmaster
www.GodLovesEveryone.org and www.MAZES.com

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