Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Punctuation - by Lynne Truss, 2004. GUEST REVIEW BY JONATHAN CAWS-ELWITT
Published August 24, 2004
"Have you read it yet?" I always hate that "yet"-- as if, by being members of a specific demographic (college-educated humanists?), we're all somehow obligated to ingest whatever the publishing industry, seconded by our peers, designates — regardless of our individual tastes and interests.
Personally, I haven't read most of them yet. But I did recently read Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss. I began writing a "mixed review" after an initial skimming of Truss's book. When I went back to read it more carefully, I discovered the book to be both better and much, much worse than I'd realized. I confess that I still did not read every word, but I think I've done it justice.
The book is better than I first realized in that there really is quite a bit of engaging, intelligent, self-effacing wit to it — in certain sections. But after my second reading, I find that its conceptual shortcomings amount to a fatal ridiculousness. And an immensely popular book on language that blurs a rich enthusiasm for the delicacy of good usage with a confused attack on everything from true mistakes to trendy trademarks to email emoticons is worse than ridiculous. It's destructive.
I care a lot about clear expression. I treasure punctuation. I spend a lot of my time thinking about the best way to say things, whether it be orally or in writing. But I think that Lynne Truss is an irresponsible, half-baked alarmist. She's a self-described "Stickler" for correct punctuation and good style. So what? I'm not, personally, prepared to rush up and congratulate her simply for insisting on correct use of the apostrophe — though I do favor that policy myself and wince when I see it done wrong by others. And though she likes to present herself as a sage and stalwart champion of the English language, as far as I can tell she's more an unfocused, unsubstantiated kvetcher than an impassioned expert user.
I've had it "up to here" with people who extrapolate from a justified scorn for the ever-present eyesore of bad writing to an apocalyptic lament that literate culture is spinning rapidly down the drain. The fact that each generation of intelligentsia — if I'm not mistaken — includes loud exponents of this viewpoint should in itself render it suspect.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves is intelligent where it's about things regarding which the author seems to have personal expertise (e.g. the map of the punctuation aficianado subculture) or where she's really done her homework (e.g. the colorful, often surprising, and sometimes controversial history of various punctuation marks). But the work is beyond embarrassing where it attacks (in both senses of the word) subjects that the author is stubbornly obtuse about — mainly the culture of email and instant messaging. Personally, I find it implausible that email and IM are threatening to destroy conventional written discourse. It seems to me the theory behind this perception would imply, erroneously, that email and IM are cognate with older, more formal uses of writing (and could thus risk supplanting them); while the unscientifically-presented empirical basis of this paradigm here just smells to me like the latest round of scapegoating in the perennial pastime of Deploring The Poor State Of Our Young People's Writing Skills. Okay, maybe today's high school and college students bring IM conventions into their lousy term papers. Well, if all they're writing outside of school is IM — the logical implication — then I would suggest that a generation ago they weren't writing outside of school at all. Was that better? And weren't the term papers just as lousy, even without eschewed capitalization and "u" for "you"?
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Punctuation - by Lynne Truss, 2004. GUEST REVIEW BY JONATHAN CAWS-ELWITT
- Published: August 24, 2004
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- Filed Under: Books: Nonfiction
- Writer: Hilary Caws-Elwitt
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Comments on this articleComments
Why do you think the book does not live up to your expectations? Is it a sense of inadequacy?
because she racist pig she said we will sue hhhahahahahah your stupido
OK, let's try again - you feel she is racist because of her supercilious attitude as expressed in the book? That's a valid point. The English character often comes across as 'snooty' to the colonials. That being said, the 'gift' of the English language behooves us to use it well.
One recognizes the value of vernacular and contemporary dialects like your own - but a language without rules is gibberish, methinks
There's something revealing about this, but I'm not exactly sure how to describe it.
Interesting review, though - I think I missed it
your a crazy stickler just like her, she said in one of her examples that something racist wouldnt you agree that in its self is wrong. She also had many ed examples as well. So The book is bad got it!!!!
what was the racist statement? and what are ed examples?
I personally don't care for the book myself, but that's mainly because I don't need it
she siad thats of the
Serena, you are attacking a book that has EXACTLY what you need to communicate with adults.
Grammer, punuation, you know, stuff like that.
I think you are really stupid, you are to obsessed in your punctuation, and everything. Just because you see an error on a buildning, doesn't mean you can go and put it there. also, you know that there are people who read this book don't like some of the words you say like nigger, that word is from the Devil. OPs I didn't do everything how she wanted people to do, I bet there are more than 20 or more errors in there. [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
Buildings are hard to fix, sentences are pretty easy
Bad words are different from bad sentences. Bad words are bad - most civilized people don't use them - and they acquire their pejorative sense through common understanding. The word you mention falls in this category, whether it is from heavenly or local sources.
Ethan - Who are you referring to? How is this book racist? Can you tell me who is using offensive language as described in your comment?
Just curious.
Hey, I was slumming.
awwww geeEEEeEEeezzzz...
i guess i am the walking poster child fer what this book seems ta "hate"...
kewlio!!
let's see...just how many of these silly fewking Rules can i mess up without even trying?
that many...i guess:
Excelsior!
I did a review of the book, too. One of my first, it was not as incendiary as this. As a matter of fact, I was feeling badly that I could not access the archive (might be under francisco68) until I read the comments. Except for Aaman and Bennett, I think anonymity is the wisest course.
Personally, I haven't read most of them yet. But I did recently read Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss. I began writing a "mixed review" after an initial skimming of Truss's book. When I went back to read it more carefully, I discovered the book to be both better and much, much worse than I'd realized. I confess that I still did not read every word, but I think I've done it justice.
It's not good professional practice to review a movie or play wasn't hasn't seen in its entirety. And it is not a good professional practice to review a book one hasn't read thoroughly.
I also read this book. I was bothered somewhat by its Britishisms--or punctuation practiced in the UK and not in America, particularly not in the American-English based Associated Press style. I also noted that some of the punctuation in the review wasn't AP style either. As for the author's tone...I don't think this is found just in the UK. Miss Manners has a similar style IMHO.
American grammar and punctuation is different from British English and sometimes there are regional differences. You might be surprised to know that some languages didn't originally have commas, question marks, etc. Chinese and Japanese are two examples that I know. I don't think the remarks in the book are to be taken as universal, even to English-speakers.
Look on page 51, about halfway down. "N----r's out"
Upon coming back to this page today, I noticed that some of the em dashes I typed in my review have appeared instead as hyphens. This evidently happened somewhere along the line in the formatting/uploading stages, due to some sort of technical glitch that I remained unaware of. Rest assured that I know the difference. Still, it's embarrassing--especially in this particular context--and I apologize.
The missing closing quotation mark is due to my own negligence. I do proofread what I write, but I sometimes miss something. I apologize for this as well.
Actually, that's not a missing quotation mark, I just realized. A quotation mark from the line above broke funny, making it look like quotes were opening (and not closing) on the line below.
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YOur stuopid I YOur Book its stupid just like u. Go bakc to brtain u crazy old Women;. we ur bokky. HOW CAN WRITE SO MUCH CRAPPPPPPPY ??? I Book.