If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of the pulse, you should probably put down this book at once. By all means congratulate yourself that you are not a pedant or even a stickler; that you are happily equipped to live in a world of plummeting punctuation standards; but just don’t bother to go any further. For any true stickler, you see, the sight of the plural word “Book’s” with an apostrophe in it will trigger a ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavement, though greatly accelerated. First there is shock. Within seconds, shock gives way to disbelief, disbelief to pain, and pain to anger. Finally (and this is where the analogy breaks down), anger gives way to a righteous urge to perpetrate an act of criminal damage with the aid of a permanent marker.
One can almost feel her pain....
Read the excerpt here
Play the punctuation game here. Am a 92% stickler...
Eagerly waiting for someone to buy the book. Will borrow it from him/her....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Eats, Shoots & Leaves is one amazing book. I read it and feel humiliated when I struggle to determine whether my punctuation is correct. I am now happy that I am struggling instead of being careless.
And she has some harsh words for ellipsis too. You have used them in this very post (.....) rather liberally! :)
Post a Comment