Transcript Eats, Shoots and Leaves

Joann and Liz on
preposterous punctuation.
EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES
WHAT’S WRONG HERE?
WHAT’S WRONG HERE?
DOES THIS ANNOY YOU?
DOES THIS ANNOY YOU?
ANGRY YET?
ANGRY YET?
FEEL THE NEED TO VIOLENTLY
CORRECT THIS?
FEEL THE NEED TO VIOLENTLY
CORRECT THIS?
If the error in punctuation in this next
slide stirs any feelings of rage or a
yearning to stand in front of a movie
theater with an apostrophe sign…
you are a “stickler” in the eyes of Lynne
Truss.
What is wrong with them?!
What is wrong with them?!
^ that’s called an interrobang.
Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is all about.
You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are
not like you admit to being useless and inferior.
You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you.
I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I
can be forever happy—will you let me be yours?
Jill
(p.9)
Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you
are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not
like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You
have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I
have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart I
can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jill
The Tractable Apostrophe
 Rules:
 It indicates a possessive in a singular noun
 It indicates time or quantity
 It indicates the omission of figures in dates
 It indicates the omission of letters
 It indicates strange, non-standard English
 It features in Irish names such as O’Neill and
O’Casey
 It indicates the plural of letters
 It also indicates plurals of words
(p.40)
Apostrophes and possessives:
 -Modern names ending in “s” require the “s” after the apostrophe
 -With names from the ancient world it is not (Archimedes’ screw;
Achilles’ heel)
 -If the name ends in an “iz” sound, an exception is made (Bridges’
score)
 -An exception I always made for Jesus (Jesus’ disciples)
(p.55)
Points to remember/pet peeves:
 Its vs It’s
 There vs There’s
 There vs They’re
 Whose vs Who’s
 (p.61)
That’ll Do, Comma
Rules:
 To illuminate the grammar of a sentence
 To point up—rather in the manner of musical
notation—such literary qualities as rhythm, direction,
pitch, tone and flow
 (p.70)
Commas for lists
 Commas for joining
 Commas filling gaps
 Commas before direct speech
 Commas setting off interjections
 Commas that come in pairs
 Final rule: don’t use comma as a stupid person

Two stupid, super common uses:

 “Yob’s”
comma: no syntactical value, attempt at a fuddled
breath
 Replacing the word “and” in news headlines
 (p.83)
CORRECT MY COMMAS:

The society decided not to prosecute the
owners of the Windsor Safari Park, where
animals, have allegedly been fed live to snakes
and lions, on legal advice.
CORRECT MY COMMAS:

The society decided not to prosecute the
owners of the Windsor Safari Park, where
animals have allegedly been fed live to
snakes and lions, on legal advice.
Examples of how comma placement can
change meaning:



“Comfort ye my people” (please go out and comfort
my people)
“Comfort ye, my people” (just cheer up, you lot; it
might never happen).
(p.75)
I, Graham Greene, grant permission to Norma
Sherry, my authorized biographer, excluding any
other to quote from my copyright material
published or unpublished.
-added a comma after “excluding any other”
the day before he died, thus creating ambiguity.
 (p.101)

Why people are wary of the colon and semicolon:
 They are old-fashioned
 They are middle-class
 They are optional
 They are mysteriously connected to pausing
 They are dangerously addictive (aka Virginia Wolfe)
 The difference between them is too negligible to be
grasped by the brain of man
 (p.109)
One theory to the use of stops:
The stops point out, with truth, the time of pause
A sentence doth require a ev'ry clause.
At ev'ry comma, stop while one you count;
At semicolon, two is the amount;
A colon doth require the time of three;
The period four, as learned men agree.

(Truss thinks this is rubbish)

(p.112)

American essayist Lewis Thomas thinks the semicolon is
to tell the reader there is still some question about the
preceeding full sentence (p.114)
Colon uses and placement:
 Always preceded by a full sentence
 Enunciatory: theatrically announces what is to come. Imagine a
satisfied "Yes!" instead of the colon

"This much is clear, Watson: it was the baying of an enormous
hound."
 imagine an "ah"

"I loved Opal Fruits as a child: no one else did"
 A fulcrum between two antithetical or oppositional statements


Pull the reader up for a nice surprise






"Man proposes: God disposes"
"I find fault with only three things in this story of yours, Jenkins: the
beginning, the middle, the end.
*In sum, colons introduce the part of the sentence that exemplifies,
restates, elaborate, undermines, explains or balance the preceding
part.
They start lists
Set off book and film subtitles
Separate dramatic characters from dialogue
Set off long quotations
Semicolons uses and places:
 between two related sentences where there is no conjunction, and
where a comma would be ungrammatical

"I love Opal Fruits; they are now called Starburst, of course"
 Subtext of a semicolon is "now this is a hint. The elements of this
sentences, although grammatically distinct, are actually elements of
a single notion. I can make it plainer for you-but hey! You're a reader!
I don't need to draw you a map!"
 To break up comma fights


"Fare were offered to Corfu, The greek island; Morocco; Elba, in the
Mediterranean; and Paris. Margaret thought about it. She had been to
Elba once and had found it dull; to Morocco, and found it too colorful.“
(p.121)
Cutting a Dash
 Chapter about "expressive, attention-seeking punctuation-punctuation that cuts a
dash; punctuation that can't help saying it knobs on, such as the exclamation marks,
the dash, the italic." (135)
Exclamation mark rules:
 in involuntary ejaculations: "Phew! Lord love a duck!"
 to salute or invoke: "O mistress mine! Where are you roaming?"
 to exclaim (or admire): "How many goodly creatures are there here!"
 for drama: "That's not the Northern Lights, that's Manderley!"
 to make a commonplace sentence more emphatic: " I could really do with some Opal
Fruits!"
 to detect potential misunderstanding of irony: "I don't mean it!“
 (p.138)
Question mark:
 When a question is direct: "What is the capital of Belgium?"
 The question is inside the quotation marks " 'Did you try the moules and chips?' he
asked."
 Not needed when the question is indirect
 (p.140)
Italics:
 titles of books, newspapers, albums, films such as
(unfortunately) Who Framed Roger Rabbit
 emphasis of certain words
 foreign words and phrases
 examples when writing about language
 (p.146)
Dashes:
 -Single dashes: creates a dramatic disjunction which
can be exploited for humour, for bathos, for shock
 -Double dashes: a bracketing device. Warmly welcomes
in the side note
 "He Was--I still can't believe this!-- trying to climb in the
window"
Vs
"He was (I still can't believe this!) trying to climb in the
window“
 (p.159)
Brackets:
 Round brackets aka parentheses
 Square
 Brace (derive from math)
 Angle (used in palaeology, linguistics and other technical specialisms)
Uses:
 Brackets lift up a section of a sentence, holding it a foot or two above the rest.
 Add information or clarify


authorial asides of various kinds




"The exclamation mark is sometimes called (really!) a dog's cock."
Square brackets are an editor's way of clarifying the meaning of a direct quote
without changing any words


"Starburst (formerly known as Opal Fruits)…)
"She had used it [Tom Jones] for quite a number of examples now.
Or in place of "it" in the previous example.
Around the word sic
(p.161)




Around the word sic
Sic means the mistake was made by the
writer/speaker and you are just quoting.
“She asked for ‘a packet of Starbust [sic]’”
This isn’t a mistake, actually; it just looks like one to the
casual eye


“I am grateful to Mrs Bollock [sic] for the following examples.
Tee hee, what a dreadful error! But it would be dishonest
of me to correct it.

“Please send a copy of The Time’s [sic], he wrote.
A little used punctuation mark
Hyphens
 to prevent ambiguity in words

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
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reformed vs re-formed
spelling out numbers
linking nouns with nouns and adj with adj
when a noun phrase is used to qualify another noun
stainless steel  stainless-steel kitchen
certain prefixes (un, anti, pro, quasi)
when certain words are spelled out
prevent letter collision shelllike  shell-like
indicate a word is unfinished and continues on the next line
hesitation or stammering w-w-w-w-watering can
when a hyphenated phrase is coming up, and you are qualifying it
before hand
He was a two- or three-year-old
(p.171)
HYPHENATE ME
He made a crude remark.
He was eighty-six.
I need to de-ice the fridge.
I love hickory-barbeque chicken.