Product Description

A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter. 'Why?' groaned the injured man. The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out. And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation. 'Panda,' ran the entry for his assailant. 'Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.' We see signs in shops every day for "Banana's" and even "Gateaux's". Competition rules remind us: "The judges decision is final." Now, many punctuation guides already exist explaining the principles of the apostrophe; the comma; the semi-colon. These books do their job but somehow punctuation abuse does not diminish. Why? Because people who can't punctuate don't read those books! Of course they don't! They laugh at books like those! Eats, Shoots and Leaves adopts a more militant approach and attempts to recruit an army of punctuation vigilantes: send letters back with the punctuation corrected. Do not accept sloppy emails. Climb ladders at dead of night with a pot of paint to remove the redundant apostrophe in "Video's sold here".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11197 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04
• Released on: 2004-04-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 209 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Who would have thought a book about punctuation could cause such a sensation? Certainly not its modest if indignant author, who began her surprise hit motivated by "horror" and "despair" at the current state of British usage: ungrammatical signs ("BOB,S PETS"), headlines ("DEAD SONS PHOTOS MAY BE RELEASED") and band names ("Hear'Say") drove journalist and novelist Truss absolutely batty. But this spirited and wittily instructional little volume, which was a U.K. #1 bestseller, is not a grammar book, Truss insists; like a self-help volume, it "gives you permission to love punctuation." Her approach falls between the descriptive and prescriptive schools of grammar study, but is closer, perhaps, to the latter. (A self-professed "stickler," Truss recommends that anyone putting an apostrophe in a possessive "its"-as in "the dog chewed it's bone"-should be struck by lightning and chopped to bits.) Employing a chatty tone that ranges from pleasant rant to gentle lecture to bemused dismay, Truss dissects common errors that grammar mavens have long deplored (often, as she readily points out, in isolation) and makes elegant arguments for increased attention to punctuation correctness: "without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning." Interspersing her lessons with bits of history (the apostrophe dates from the 16th century; the first semicolon appeared in 1494) and plenty of wit, Truss serves up delightful, unabashedly strict and sometimes snobby little book, with cheery Britishisms ("Lawks-a-mussy!") dotting pages that express a more international righteous indignation.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This impassioned manifesto on punctuation made the best-seller lists in Britain and has followed suit here. Journalist Truss gives full rein to her "inner stickler" in lambasting common grammatical mistakes. Asserting that punctuation "directs you how to read in the way musical notation directs a musician how to play," Truss argues wittily and with gusto for the merits of preserving the apostrophe, using commas correctly, and resurrecting the proper use of the lowly semicolon. Filled with dread at the sight of ubiquitous mistakes in store signs and headlines, Truss eloquently speaks to the value of punctuation in preserving the nuances of language. Liberally sprinkling the pages with Briticisms ("Lawks-a-mussy") and moving from outright indignation to sarcasm to bone-dry humor, Truss turns the finer points of punctuation into spirited reading. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
The title of this clever, creative commentary on commas is the same as the author's bestselling grammatical guide for adults, but the concept here is quite different. The first two pages introduce the titular panda who eats (a sandwich), shoots (two arrows from his bow) and then leaves the scene, followed by an author's note on the importance of the comma in written communication. In the following pages, each spread offers a pair of sentences differing by just one or two commas. For example, on one page, a school crossing guard and students illustrate "Slow, children crossing." The facing page shows dawdling children on a bridge with the text, "Slow children crossing." The witty sentences increase in complexity (and hilarity), augmented by sophisticated watercolor-and-ink illustrations with New Yorker flair. A final spread reprises the entire text with miniature illustrations and specific grammatical explanations. Elementary-school teachers will love this lighthearted but instructive effort, as will their students, who will never look at a comma again in quite the same way. (Nonfiction. 5-10) (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

humor for grammar geeks
If you've been living in a cave, the subtitle explains what Eats, Shoots and Leaves is about: "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation." Since I'm a bit of a grammar geek (albeit an imperfect and occasionally lazy one), I absolutely loved it.

There wasn't much that was news to me. Ones vs. one's was helpful, though I understand that's controversial. I spent far too much time one day googling to chase down which was correct. For the most part, I vastly prefer the practicality of the British usage of such things as putting punctuation inside or outside quotation marks depending on where it makes sense and whether to add an extra S when forming the possessive of words ending in S:
British: When did John say "stop"?
U.S.: When did John say "stop?"
British: Thomas's
U.S.: Thomas'

I do, however, much prefer the logic of the terminal comma in a list, since it makes it clear whether or not the last two items are separate or a pair.

More entertaining than the facts, however, was the humor. I laughed every couple of pages, and read so many excerpts aloud that my 12-year-old picked it up to read as soon as I'd finished it.

The bottom line here, though, is that this is a very subjective book. If you're the kind of person who knows the difference between there, they're, and their, cringes at new car's and truck's, and daydreams about taking a Sharpie to the 10 items or less sign, you'll probably love this. If that sounds obsessive to you, and like I should get a life, you'll probably hate it.

"Why don't you just tell me..."
This book was recommended to me for my bad grammar, but it didn't do much to help. My problem with this book is that after you read it, you feel like a third-grader. I'd prefer less opinion and more instruction ,but that's not the case in this book. The author wants you to know her opinion but offers little instruction. If you want to read a rant on grammar then this is the book for you, but if you want a black-and-white approach with examples ( instead of someone repeatedly telling you how easy it all is)don't even think about using this book as a reference.

I NEVER GOT MY BOOK
I have never received my book. The seller rushed me leave her a positive feedback, before I received the book, by sending me multiple emails. In the end, I still do not have that book. Neither did I receive a refund...