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Drawing a line under poor grammarEats, shoots and leaves II. This time it's illustrated.By Jane CharlestonA panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it,
then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. I’m sure we’ve all heard this joke before, especially those of you in the book trade. (It may even be safe to say you’re a little sick of it.) To say that Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves was a publishing phenomenon would be understating it slightly. After noticing how lax people of the UK and the US had become with regards to punctuation, her aim with the book was to remind people of its importance. The comma in the book’s title says it all; a misplaced comma can completely change the meaning of the sentence. Without accurate punctuation, communication collapses in a heap. For example: ‘The policeman said: “The accused is lying. I saw him break into the shop on Thursday night,”’ is rather different from ‘“The policeman,” said the accused, “is lying. I saw him break into the shop on Thursday night.”’ Or, ‘boys, dogs and cats’ does not mean the same as ‘boys’ dogs and cats’. It would seem obvious to suggest that all children should be taught to punctuate properly from the very beginning of learning to read and write. But a quick glance around shows that many people do not see the importance at all, or simply do not know that they are incorrect. Consider the greengrocer’s apostrophe, helping to advertise carrots’ and potatoe’s. The thing that always struck me, is that these apostrophes are not just misused, they are not even necessary. The greengrocer needn’t have even wasted his chalk. Another example would be the common misuse of ‘its’. Its, is not the same as it’s. The latter is a contraction of ‘it is’, or ‘it has’. The former is a possessive. However, so few people understand this simple difference that you see it/it’s ubiquitously wrong in official handouts, printed menus and tourist information. Lynne Truss’s book calls for a zero tolerance approach to sloppy grammar, and the popularity of the book suggests many people agree with her. If any proof were needed of its cultural status, it has even produced its own spoof, Eats, Shits and Leaves by Antal Parody. The campaign continues this month with the release of her children’s version of the book, illustrated by Bonnie Timmons. Timmons has fun with the differences to a sentence that a comma can make. Her witty drawings highlight the differences beautifully, for example ‘Becky walked on, her head a little higher than usual,’ and ‘Becky walked on her head, a little higher than usual’. Punctuation was included as part of the National Curriculum, which began in the late Eighties, but it clearly isn’t working as glaring grammatical errors are almost everywhere. Oxford University Press, presumably in response to an identified need, has just published the Compact Oxford Dictionary For Students. It’s ‘a dictionary for college and university students’. So why, after having spent at least thirteen years in full-time education, do these 18-year-olds need a junior dictionary with simplified meanings? There’s a section in the dictionary called Brush Up Your English (honestly). It tells these youngsters with their 5 A-grade A levels that a full stop is ‘mainly used to mark the end of a sentence’ and that ‘an apostrophe can show that letters have been omitted’. It’s enough to make Jeremy Paxman weep. Frank McCourt, who wrote the foreword to the book, labelled Truss a saint. I certainly agree that what she has done is commendable; she has brought an omnipresent problem to the attention of many people, many of whom may now pause to consider whether to type its or, it’s. One can only hope that the new publication of the book for children will encourage them to carefully consider the importance of punctuation in their writing, and possibly ensure than when they do reach university age they will not need to reach for hep when considering whether or not to use an apostrophe. Be a real geek! Play the punctuation game www.eatsshootsandleaves.com Have your say
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