Gratuitous Llama Book Review

My Metro reading at the moment is Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, a delightfully curmudgeonly rant on the decline of proper punctuation delivered in the tone only a Brit Grammar Nazi can achieve.

While the book itself is quite entertaining, what I find even better are some of the historical samples and episodes cited by Truss, including a very funny feud between James Thurber and New Yorker editor Harold Ross concerning "the grison anecdote", an even funnier letter from G. B. Shaw to T. E. Lawrence (aka "Lawrence of Arabia") concerning the punctuation in his book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom which begins, "My dear Luruns [sic], Confound you and your book: you are no more to be trusted with a pen than a child with a torpedo", and this charming passage from P.G. Wodehouse's Over Seventy:

How anybody can compose a story by word of mouth face to face with a bored-looking secretary with a notebook is more than I can imagine. Yet may authors think nothing of saying, "Ready, Miss Spelvin? Take dictation. Quote No comma Sir Jasper Murgatroyd comma close quotes comma said no better make it hissed Evangeline comma quote I would not marry you if you were the last man on earth period close quotes Quote well comma I'm not comma so the point does not arise comma close quotes replied Sir Jasper twirling his moustache cynically period And so the long day wore on period. End of chapter."

If I had to do that sort of thing, I should be feeling all the time that the girl was saying to herself as she took it down, "Well comma this beats me period How comma with homes for the feebleminded touting for custom on every side comma has a man like this succeeded in remaining at large mark of interrogation."

Some people will no doubt dismiss Truss's plea for proper punctuation for the same reason they sneer at etiquette champions such as Miss Manners, who they believe adhere to an outdated and exploded system of arbitrary rules just so they can snigger when somebody picks up the wrong fork. In fact, however, proper grammar (including punctuation) and etiquette serve the same meliorative purpose: by establishing a clear system of rules and guidelines, they both aid people in understanding one another. When these rules break down, confusion ensues (as demonstrated in the title of Truss's book). The punch line in both cases, of course, is that the basics really are not very difficult. Truss's primary lament (and I think Miss Manners would agree) is simply that nobody seems to give a damn anymore.

Anyhoo, I'd recommend this book. It's bright, breezy and lucid. It's also wicked funny.