Books |
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Lynne Truss
By
Published: Jan 01, 2007
Category:
Self Help
Good grammar is only half the story.
There’s also punctuation.
And isn’t that a snore?
Or was, when you and I sat under dusty chalkboards and suffered through some deeply boring recitation of rules that were just as enervatingly presented in a textbook.
So how, to the eternal surprise of many (including the author), did “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” rocket to the top of the New York Times bestseller list?
It can’t be because we’ve suddenly gone punctuation-mad.
It must be because Lynne Truss is such a lively writer that we’d read her on anything — including punctuation.
For one thing, Truss is an English writer who not only likes the subject but is kinda snooty about people who don’t. Snobbery like that is a rare event, and always to be cherished. And her hauteur is not, for once, aimed exclusively at Americans; she is agog to report that “most English people do not know their apostrophe from their elbow.”
For another, she knows lovely stories. Start with the dedication. It’s to the “striking Bolshevik printers of St. Petersburg who, in 1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for punctuation marks as for letters, and thereby directly precipitated the first Russian Revolution.” And that is, as they say, just for openers.
The best part: She’s funny. She quotes a newspaper: “Elton John, a friend of the footballer’s…..” And comments: “Well, pass me the oxygen, Elton, and for heaven’s sake, stop banging on about your glitzy mates for a minute while I think. A friend of the footballer’s. Why isn’t it, “a friend of the footballer”? Doesn’t the construction ”of the” do away with the need for another possessive? I mean to say, why do these sweet little Beckhams need to possess Elton John twice? Or is that a silly question?”
Between digressions, Truss gets serious. What is punctuation? She says: just good manners. Which are, as we know, best seen when never noticed. We punctuate well because we want life to run smoother for our readers. Caring for others: what a concept! [To buy “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” from Amazon, click here.]
Rules? There are many, and Truss stands with Dr. Johnson: The point is not to “embalm” the language. Rules only take you so far. At some point, common sense kicks in. And, on the personal side, resignation. For make no mistake: It’s lonely caring about this stuff. “The feeling of isolation,” Truss writes. “The feeling of nerdishness.”
But, above all, Truss delivers the feeling of fun — the fun of knowing the right thing, and doing it. And in being in on the joke. The panda joke, that is. Which I’ll tell, less to save you the trouble of reading the book than to lure you deeper into its curious charms.
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I’m a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
Yes, it’s to groan. And also to learn from.
