Eats, Shoots & Leaves (2003) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

People edit see section history

• Lynne Truss: The author and narrator of the book. She is opinionated and resolute about her approach to punctuation.
• Ross: Add a description of this character.
• Shaw
• Perekladin
• Tom Jones
• Gertrude Stein
• Elton John

Quotes edit see section history

• “The big final rule for the comma is one that you won't find in any books by grammarians. It is quite easy to remember, however. The rule is: don't use commas like a stupid person.”

• “Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bumb at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, like this, UP, for hours if necessary, UP, like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over and you run out of steam anyway and then eventually with the help of three dots ... you stop.”

• “semicolons are dangerously habit-forming.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• punctuation is “a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling”.

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• A cat has claws at the ends of its paws. A comma’s a pause at the end of a clause.

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• When a piece of dialogue is attributed at its end, conclude it with a comma inside the inverted commas:

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• When the dialogue is attributed at the start, conclude with a full stop inside the inverted commas:

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• words that must not be used to join two sentences together with a comma are however and nevertheless,

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• When the dialogue stands on its own, the full stop comes inside the inverted commas:

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• When only a fragment of speech is being quoted, put punctuation outside the inverted commas:

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• So colons introduce the part of a sentence that exemplifies, restates, elaborates, undermines, explains or balances the preceding part. They also have several formal introductory roles. They start lists (especially lists using semicolons):

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• The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added […] The period [or full stop] tells you that that is that; if you didn’t get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with the semicolon there you get a pleasant feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer.

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• When we point out illiterate mistakes we are often aggressively instructed to “get a life” by people who, interestingly, display no evidence of having lives themselves.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• England
• Argentina
• America
• London

First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by The Life of Kingsley Amis, and followed by The Little Friend.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Lynne Truss (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Frank McCourt (Foreword)
2. Profile Books (Publisher)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• New York Times Bestseller (2004)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PE1450 .T753 2008
• Dewey: 428.2

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Reference › Writing › Writing Skills
• Books › Reference › Words & Language › Grammar
• Books › Entertainment › Humor › Essays
• Books › Nonfiction › Education
• Books › Professional & Technical › Education

Books Influenced by This Book edit see section history