I managed to miss out on this book when it was first published in 2003 though I remember clearly its immediate popularity. I received it recently as a birthday present which seems to imply that I am something of a pedant (although I’m not). As a longstanding devotee of the comma, I loved this book. Truss is witty and allows her subject to speak for itself. Who knew that punctuation could be so interesting, all on its own?
On a purely physical level this book is an easy read – only just over 200 pages and rather large type. It’s a breath of fresh air. So many people find grammar pedantic and fuddy-duddyish, but Truss reveals that actually, the opposite is true. She dedicates the book:
“To the memory of the striking Bolshevik printers of St Petersburg who, in 1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for punctuation marks as for letters, and thereby directly precipitated the first Russian Revolution.”
Bet you didn’t know that! And I bet you didn’t know about Sir Roger Casement who was “hanged on a comma.” Both are fascinating nuggets that Truss has dug up to prove just how important punctuation is. As someone who does an awful lot of writing I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never given punctuation that much thought. I use it to clarify and also out of habit. But it was only in reading this book that I gave any thought to its development. It’s wonderful to discover that actually, punctuation can cause as much argument as words!
As a hardened fiction reader I expected this to be an instructive text and therefore rather dry and boring. But as it turns, it held my attention from the first page and had me giggling on several occasions. Yes, shocking as it may seem, punctuation can be hilarious!
I would encourage anyone to read this, even if you’re not a pedant or a comma-fancier.
Fourth Estate, 2009. ISBN-10:0007329067. 209pp.
[Nikki uses punctuation and has the occasional giggle over on her blog]
Despite the nuggets of information in this book, I have to ask: But where would we be without Joyce who broke the rules and greengrocers who made us laugh by not knowing the rules etc. grammar and punctuation can be dressed up in humour but for me the authoritarian shadow of rule enforcers hangs over the issue- the jokes in this book can make one chuckle, but there was probably grim laughter in the GDR- a great review but I cannot be persuaded that being pendantic is ‘good’ for us- I feel there is a neat orderliness about some of the readers who probably liked this book which speaks of suburban manicured gardens- why not rip down their fences and expose them to books which have content and feeling? Just a thought with apologies attached. John.
John, I am by no means a pedant and when it’s taken too seriously it actually really annoys me. But Truss manages to balance it with humour – most of what she’s discovered she discovered by being pretty pedantic herself and very thorough in her research. But she offers up these nuggets with a real sense of humour, allowing us to appreciate the beauty and the laughter in these “mistakes”. That’s actually why I enjoyed the book. If it had been a smug, “Look at all these silly mistakes” sort of book, I would have thrown it at the wall! I think you can definitely appreciate this book as well as those that are “messy” and don’t play by the rules. Rules are there to be broken, after all.
As I hoped to get across, my argument was purely with the book- it was a great review. I just think humour can be used to peddle a lot of things. I’m glad you enjoyed the book, though. I did chuckle once or twice myself. For me, it was a bit like watching a football team I hate play well. Ms Truss is clearly very shrewd and has made a lot of money, but I don’t like the cause she supports. I hope this clarifies things a little. I have read your blog in the past and enjoyed that rather more than the work of Ms Truss- though our attitudes to the Royal Wedding may have been divergent lol. Best wishes, John.
Oh, I understood, John, no worries. Personally I find pedantry a little scary, purely because it’s about getting bogged down in details. Sometimes nitpicking is helpful, but not all the time. I was surprised I liked the book for that reason, I didn’t expect it to make me laugh! Glad you like the blog
I think it takes a certain amount of talent to make something as dull as punctuation entertaining, so my hat’s off to the author of this book. Nicely done review, Nikki.
The cover is different on this edition, it looks more like an old-timey pulp Western. I wonder which cover is more popular?
Joyce knew the rules, hence he could break them so effectively, and greengrocers’ errors wouldn’t be funny if we didn’t know what they were doing wrong. I haven’t actually read ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’, so Truss may be more of a pedant than I realise and in that case I won’t defend her, but I don’t think anybody is saying you shouldn’t break the rules; it’s knowing what they are first that’s important. (Obviously the ‘rules’ are flexible when it comes to certain areas of language, which do evolve – but if I see one more person talking about ‘reigning in’ their enthusiasm rather than ‘reining in’…)
PS I feel I have to check my grammar very very carefully when making this sort of post – please assume all errors are intentional and creative
Nikki – I think this post was before your time but we used to do a bit of a humorous Tuesday Alternative series where I wrote a piece about grammar freaks that you – and John – might enjoy.
http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/thursday-soapbox-argh-argh-argh-the-zero-tolerance-approach-to-grammar-freaks/
I have to admit, I find the kind of superior attitude you find sometimes in relation to grammar quite stomach-turning. There does not seem to be much questioning of why mistakes might be made and whether, indeed, some of the rules are even necessary. (I have an entire rant about “its” versus “it’s” on that post).
My sister (also a writer) wrote a piece quite recently about spelling. We have quarrelled about the subject ourselves and I really hate the idea of standardising spelling and basing it on phonetics (reigns and reins being a good example). But she would argue it’s all very well for people like me. She has seen how much a lot of children struggle to master reading and writing and – really – she’s right that it shouldn’t be that vast amounts of people are cut off from reading and writing or are not confident with it. Perhaps one of the difficulties is that people on a bookblog are usually people who never had trouble learning to read or write and so do not have so much understanding and empathy for what is a big problem.
Here is her post anyway on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure.
http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/2011/03/down-with-spelling.html
She didn’t find much agreement (from a bunch of writers – probably not surprising) but it’s an interesting and challenging thought nonetheless.
Most of the time when people go on about grammatical mistakes, they are completely unimportant and they are using it to judge people. I think what we need to get back to is not that sense of superiority or pedantry – but aiding meaning. A lot of meaning comes from context. Where it is unclear, grammar is important (or may be important – perhaps, such as in much poetry, you don’t want the meaning to be totally clear).
PS talking of “reigning in”, I keep seeing people writing “Hear hear” or “Here here” all over the place. I would assume it was the first but made me realise I haven’t actually seen it written down before so perhaps it isn’t. Anyone know?
‘I keep seeing people writing “Hear hear” or “Here here” all over the place’
This may actually depend on what they mean to say – but I would assume it’s usually ‘hear hear’.
I certainly agree that you shouldn’t use grammar to judge people, and mistakes should never be seen as important in a non-professional setting (which includes blogs). But I certainly wouldn’t write off all concern about grammar and spelling as people pretending to be concerned in order to be superior, although I know this definitely does happen, and is awful. Although I agree that it is most important when it affects the meaning of a sentence/piece of work, I do genuinely mind when I see obvious errors in a published piece of writing, and not because I enjoy nitpicking – because for me personally, especially if it’s fiction, it breaks the flow and stops me appreciating the prose in that particular bit. (This is particularly annoying as it’s usually not the author’s fault.)
On the other hand, language *is* always evolving and errors like my reign/rein example are incorporated into it, which is not something even the most pedantic person can stop…
Laura, I worried about any punctuation or grammar errors in this post, it’s really not the place to make them! I also totally agree with you – not all correction is about superiority. I don’t mind being corrected at all, as long as it’s not in a nasty “Goodness, didn’t you know THAT?” way. I also agree with your earlier comment – Joyce could only break the rules because they were there in the first place. That’s the thrilling thing about rules – they can push you to do something completely different.
rosyb, thanks for those links, I’ve never read them before so I’m off to do so now. Personally I love the quirks of language like rein/reign, but as someone who very recently worked with children on their reading I know how tough it can be. Standardised spelling would also probably help the children for whom English is not a first language.
“But I certainly wouldn’t write off all concern about grammar and spelling as people pretending to be concerned in order to be superior, although I know this definitely does happen, and is awful. Although I agree that it is most important when it affects the meaning of a sentence/piece of work, I do genuinely mind when I see obvious errors in a published piece of writing, and not because I enjoy nitpicking – because for me personally, especially if it’s fiction, it breaks the flow and stops me appreciating the prose in that particular bit. (This is particularly annoying as it’s usually not the author’s fault.)”
Laura – totally agree with you. It’s all about context and balance and degree, isn’t it? I – too – get agitated with lots of errors in published books because that really shouldn’t be the hard bit and if the work is professionally produced and they are asking money for it – well it should be done properly.
I also think blogs etc if they are out for public consumption should at least try. Mistakes are going to creep in – particularly in a fast-moving sphere like blogs and the back-end of websites are not the easiest places to proof-read either. But blogs have the advantage of being easily corrected and we try our best on VL and I would hope other blogs would too.
Obviously my piece about grammar freaks is a comic exaggeration the other way and my sister’s piece is something I have argued with her about! I still don’t agree with her but I do think the argument is an interesting one.
I’ve commented rather a lot on this post already, so this will be my last one, but just wanted to say that I read your sister’s article, Rosy, and it is really interesting. Like you, I don’t agree that we should all switch to phonetic spelling, but the case of children learning to read and write is obviously one where we need to suspend our normal attitudes to grammar. I understand people’s concerns that children might have to relearn everything when older if they spell/punctuate more freely at school, especially if they struggle with reading and writing anyway, but on the other hand, I never did much grammar at school and picked up pretty much everything myself simply because I enjoyed reading so much, and my sister always wrote in what they called ‘trywriting’ when she was in the infants i.e. spelling however you please, and she doesn’t have any problems now. I guess the point is that while it might be important to realise that you will probably have to be able to switch into ‘professional grammar mode’ later in life, this shouldn’t interfere with kids having fun with words, especially if they’re only in primary school (ridiculous literary hour). Anyway. Enough from me!
“our normal attitudes to grammar”- oh, dear!!! The use of ‘our’ excludes and ‘normal’ is a very dubious social construct I would contend. I think ideas about grammar tie up with attitudes to literature- like many people who like Burroughs etc. I hate conformity and I suppose that is where my appreciation of diverse types of literature stems from- the yearning to be free and think and read and write what I like, when I like and how I like. It is a very interesting question- my thesis supervisor drove me mad by correcting split infinitives when the meanings of the sentences were very clear. Why he bothered I will never know, but I sensed he had an authoritarian personality. I think the debate on the words we choose will never end, but the days of grammar being upheld may be numbered due to the healthy diversity of the way people seem to be communicating now. But who can tell?
I’m a professional pedant – a sub-editor (or comma-wrangler, as my sister calls it). I do think it’s important for the sake of clarity, if nothing else, to be reasonably pedantic and make sure you’re saying what you mean! One of my writers, for instance, cannot remember (or possibly just type – goodness knows my speed-typing is appalling) the difference between persecute and prosecute, which makes a massive difference to the meaning. I like ‘correct’ grammar mainly because it allows writing to be that much more subtle and have so much more finesse, so many more shades of meaning.
Some of the house style rules at my company do irritate me as being overly pedantic/not even slightly idiomatic for modern English though.
Without my comma-wrangling hat on, as long as it’s not in a professional context I don’t give a flying one what mistakes people make, as long as I can understand them. I know my random ability to spell is like someone else’s random musical talent – it doesn’t make me better than anyone else who hasn’t got it, just like I’m no worse than someone with perfect pitch, given I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket!
What does concern me a bit is that context often doesn’t seem to be taught – when it’s fine to use contractions, abbreviations, LOLs and whatnot, and when it’s not. I think we need to be able to do it ‘properly’ to know when it’s appropriate not to (CVs, for instance), and to give us the ability to play with it for effect.
Back to the book – is it something an editor would chuckle at, or is it just going to be things I already know and get professionally annoyed by? People keep telling me to read it and I just haven’t been inspired to.