[ book tip by Ann Morgan ] I don’t know what it’s like on mainland Europe – far better, I suspect – but in Britain education about the nuts and bolts of the mother tongue is pretty non-existent. With the demise of most grammar schools (no pun intended) and the rise of trendy teaching methods, most pupils get through their entire education without so much as hearing the words ‘verb’, ‘apostrophe’ or – heaven forbid – ‘semi-colon’. The result has been a generation of young adults with only a vague grasp of how to put their ideas on the page and no way of untangling a sentence when it goes wrong.  

Which is why Lynne Truss’s Eats Shoots & Leaves made such a splash when it came onto the market back in 2003. A no-nonsense, no-frills – and yet infinitely readable – guide to punctuation and its uses and abuses, the book appeals to pedants and novices alike. Laid out in a logical fashion, with sections dealing individually with each item in the punctuation toolbox, Eats Shoots & Leaves could easily be used simply as a reference book. Indeed, many’s the time I’ve hoicked it off the shelf to settle the business of a rogue colon or troublesome em-dash.  

But it’s as a straight read that the book really comes to life. A biography of an obsession, Eats Shoots & Leaves documents a one-woman crusade to make the world a better, more clearly expressed place. With humour, wit and plenty of anecdotes, the work brings a traditionally dry and musty topic out of the shadows and back into the public arena. Heartily recommended.       

[ book info ] Truss, Lynne: Eats Shoots & Leaves. The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. (Book language: English) Profile Books, 2003 . ISBN: 1861976127.