Punctuation and Apostrophe
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“Eats, Shoots, and Leaves,” is written by Lynne Truss and offers a humorous look into the world of punctuation. She begins her first chapter by emphasizing the difficulties of being a “stickler” for misused punctuation, feeling frustrated as a stickler in a time when no one seems to care. She compares herself to the little boy from the movie The Sixth Sense where instead of seeing dead people, she sees dead punctuation. For example: “A woman, without her man, is nothing.” Or “A woman: without her, man is nothing” (9). She mentions the use of commas in the following situations:
1. in a list
2. before dialogue
3. to mark out additional information (14)
She points out that the full stop, or period as in North America, and the comma were originally used to refer to certain pieces of writings, before they were seen as marks on paper. Truss suggests that people today are pulled between personal preferences and rules of grammar, such as those who prefer the Oxford comma or those who consider it an abomination. In amidst the hustle, she calls sticklers to unite and join together for the right use of English punctuation.
In her second chapter, The Tractable Apostrophe, she notes that English is now in a culture which has adapted the apostrophe as “visual decoration” and is not being taken serious enough. It was in the 16th century that the apostrophe was used, which meant “omission”. She informs the reader that somewhere in the 17th century, the introduction of the apostrophe before the “s” in singular possessive cases then later put after the plural possessives in the 18th century. Truss has formally outlined the use of Apostrophes, which are specifically to:
1. indicate a possessive in a singular noun
2. indicate time or quantity
3. indicate the omission of figures in dates
4. indicate the omission of
“Eats, Shoots, and Leaves,” is written by Lynne Truss and offers a humorous look into the world of punctuation. She begins her first chapter by emphasizing the difficulties of being a “stickler” for misused punctuation, feeling frustrated as a stickler in a time when no one seems to care. She compares herself to the little boy from the movie The Sixth Sense where instead of seeing dead people, she sees dead punctuation. For example: “A woman, without her man, is nothing.” Or “A woman: without her, man is nothing” (9). She mentions the use of commas in the following situations:
1. in a list
2. before dialogue
3. to mark out additional information (14)
She points out that the full stop, or period as in North America, and the comma were originally used to refer to certain pieces of writings, before they were seen as marks on paper. Truss suggests that people today are pulled between personal preferences and rules of grammar, such as those who prefer the Oxford comma or those who consider it an abomination. In amidst the hustle, she calls sticklers to unite and join together for the right use of English punctuation.
In her second chapter, The Tractable Apostrophe, she notes that English is now in a culture which has adapted the apostrophe as “visual decoration” and is not being taken serious enough. It was in the 16th century that the apostrophe was used, which meant “omission”. She informs the reader that somewhere in the 17th century, the introduction of the apostrophe before the “s” in singular possessive cases then later put after the plural possessives in the 18th century. Truss has formally outlined the use of Apostrophes, which are specifically to:
1. indicate a possessive in a singular noun
2. indicate time or quantity
3. indicate the omission of figures in dates
4. indicate the omission of