eats, shoots & leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation

[May 5th, 2004] British journalist Lynne Truss had published several books that went nowhere before she decided to write one to please herself. Guaranteed not to sell, Eats, Shoots became a surprise 2003 hit in England.

A short, chatty book about punctuation might seem a slight object for adulation, but last month's Powell's crowd was standing-room only, including a C-SPAN crew.

Despite Truss' militant slogan "Sticklers Unite!" and the intimidating "Zero Tolerance" in the subtitle, the book is light, charming, droll and often quite forgiving. Truss thunders against abuse of apostrophes and alternately ridicules and mourns the rank ignorance in so much punctuation use on both sides of the pond. But, she grants, "In some matters of punctuation there are simple rights and wrongs; in others, one must apply a good ear to good sense."

The historical references are spotty. Fortunately, there's a sizable bibliography that may send inspired readers to Partridge, Shaw and more systematic histories. The real strength of this book is its metaphors and good cheer. One smiles at the running references to commas as herding dogs and at "Special Policeman Semicolon," even if the imagery seems a bit, well, twee. Truss beautifully conveys the sense, even the sweet rapture, that proper punctuation can give a reader, as opposed to the cold virtue of merely observing the rules.

Gotham, Truss' publisher, erred in choosing to issue the American edition with no changes. Yanks will be startled by British spellings, commas and periods outside quotation marks, slang ("But blow me," "hoicked," "naff-all chance"), and occasional pop references. Surely these will not survive in the Swedish and Japanese translations! And unfortunately, even the book's subtitle bodes ill for the prospects of stickler unity: Personally, I'd put a hyphen in "zero tolerance."