“Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynne Truss
November 16th, 2009 by 
Foreign Reader
“Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynne Truss, a modern English writer, is one of my favourite English books. It was sent to me by my friend Rosemary Slosek, who knows that I’m a great fan of the English language. “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” is a book about English punctuation — the subtle science I longed to know all about.
“It’s not a grammar book”, Ms Truss claims in the first chapter and proceeds to explain: “The trouble with grammar books is that they are read by keen foreigners; meanwhile, native English-speakers who require their help are the last people who will make the effort to buy and read them.” Ironically, this review of her own book is written by yet another keen foreigner.
“Eats, Shoots & Leaves” is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. It’s full of jokes; true, but funny, stories; historical examples of how punctuation actually changed people’s lives in the past and genuine examples of misplaced punctuation marks accompanied by hilarious comments. Here and there a short funny poem or a quotation from a famous book saves the reader from being bored (“A cat has claws at the end of its paws. A comma’s a pause at the end of a clause.”). All of it makes the book a very interesting read. Another impressive thing about the book is the passion, with which the author speaks about the main subject — English punctuation. The main purpose of the book is not to teach people to punctuate correctly (though the book does it), but to attract everyone’s attention to the deteriorating common usage of apostrophes, commas and semicolons. Lynne is doing her best to save English punctuation before it’s too late and there’s nothing more to save. “Why did the Apostrophe Protection Society not have a militant wing? Could I start one?”, she asks in the “Introduction”. And I must admit I sympathised with her feelings fully while reading the book for the first time, and now as I re-read it I still sympathise with her.
The book has given me a lot of useful tips presented in a lively, easy-to-understand manner. I might disagree with the author in some cases (for example, when she attacks emoticons, rather unfairly from my point of view), but I’m very grateful to her for writing this book and to Rosemary for sending it to me. It has helped me to rediscover the English language and given me quite a few minutes of true joy. I highly recommend it, especially if you are often in doubt whether to write “it’s” or “its”. Lynne explains the difference in such a way that you will never forget.
What is the difference between a colon and a semicolon? Are you for or against the Oxford comma? When was the apostrophe used in the English language for the first time? “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” will help you answer all these and many other questions.
It’s a really special book.
Posted in English and the English | Tags: English and the English, grammar, punctuation | 
8 Comments »
Sounds like an interesting book, Irina.
I might order it on Amazon in the coming days.
Funny to notice how the English take care of their foreign friends. Some time ago I received “Watching the English, The Hidden Rules of English Behavior” from my friend Ann Godridge when she and her husband Ryan visited us in Witney.
The author, Kate Fox, explains in a rahter pleasant humorous way English conversation and behavior codes. I find the book extremely useful and it has helped me already in several situations.
For instance, I understand much better now why the English take such a long time to say goodbye after a visit…and why they are so cautious in asking direct questions. They prefer to find out the things they’d like to know about people by making comments indirectly, hoping that one catches the hint, to avoid embarrassments on both sides.
So, this is also a special book
17.12.2009 @ 23:40
Rosemary sent me “Watching the English” nearly a year ago, Cora. It’ll be the next review in this category, I think, but I need to finish it first: when I took it with me to my first journey abroad, I could only manage half of it.
Kate Fox writes in a humourous way – that’s true – but I later told Rosemary that I’d felt sorry for the English while reading it: so many rules to observe. Rosemary laughted.
As for Lynne Truss and her book, I’m sure you will enjoy it. I learned a lot of new things about the English language from it! Punctuation is no longer a mystery to me.
Our common friends in the UK are lovely indeed: many of the books I’ve reviewed here – or are going to review – were sent to me by Ann also, or by Rosemary. They know exactly what I’ll like.
18.12.2009 @ 10:28
How fast is Amazon!
Today the postman has brought me Lynne Truss’ punctuation guide.
I’m especially interested in the ‘comma’and maybe I will find as well some remarks about the use of three dots (…) instead of a question mark.
19.12.2009 @ 23:00
Good news – I’m sure you’ll enjoy the book, Cora. Please share your impressions once you’ve read it.
20.12.2009 @ 10:26
Truss talks about berks and wankers, berks being ‘outrageously slipshod’ about language, wankers are those who are over-precise…
Suppose you had to choose to which side you belong, what would it be for you?
For me, I’d like to be something in between, because I’m not sloppy but I can appreciate people who are playing with words. Language is vivid phenomenon which means words and rules may change in time. So I’m tending to the ‘berks’ side…
25.12.2009 @ 16:27
My sympathies are with the “wankers”, I think. Playing with words in a creative way is fine, but being simply sloppy and careless is another story. Though, of course, I’ll never break my relationship with a friend just because of a missing apostrophe.
Merry Christmas, Cora!
25.12.2009 @ 17:01
I am tempted to finally read this book, Irina. Well done!
26.06.2010 @ 11:58
Thanks, Ogo, and welcome to my blog. Trust me you won’t be disappointed when you read the book. Not that you really need any improvements to your already perfect punctuation, but the book is a lot of fun!
26.06.2010 @ 13:08