Lynne Truss- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

I wholeheartedly admit that I care about punctuation. My kids in ENGL1020 did their class evaluations last week, and one of them complained that I care too much about "stuff like punctuation and rules", or something to that effect. And I do care. I proudly belong to the Facebook groups "I judge you when you use poor grammar" and "Good grammar is hot". The hubby proofreads my blogs every time I post so that I won't be caught making mistakes out there in the public realm. Yes, you might think I'm silly and sad, but that's just the way I am. And I'm glad to know that I'm not alone.

As a companion piece to Bill Bryson's Troublesome Words, I picked up Eats, Shoots & Leaves at the public library last week. It is to punctuation what Bryson's book is to grammar: a completely hilarious, laugh-out-loud guide to how to write like an intelligent human being. I loved it. Truss covers apostrophes, commas, exclamation points, question marks, brackets, braces, parentheses, periods, semi-colons, hyphens, dashes, ellipses, strokes, and italics, and all with a wicked British sense of humour and a realization that us punctuation nuts are just that--nuts.

When I become a prof and am forced to teach a first year writing requirement class, I will not be using Strunk & White. I will not be using The Lively Art of Writing (the grammar & style guide that my high school used. Lively, it was not). I will be teaching the writing portion of my class using Troublesome Words and Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Why subject students to boring rote grammar lessons when they can learn it, and probably learn it better, from books that have a sense of humour? Hi, my name is Melissa, and I think that grammar & punctuation are important. Hopefully reading these books will make you think so too. If not, think about why you maybe haven't had a date in awhile: good grammar is hot.