Eats, Shoots & Leaves

I had the opportunity to read “Eats, Shoots & Leaves”, by Lynne Truss for my book report. It was definitely a good read with a lot of great insights. It also helped me realize how much I’ve taken punctuation for granted. Simply omitting or changing the punctuation can drastically change the meaning of what has been written. This is just one example given in Truss book:

“A woman, without her man, is nothing.”

Compared with:

“A woman: without her, man is nothing.”

The book also gives a good definition of punctuation and what it is for, comparing punctuation to traffic signals. Punctuation leads us on the correct path through written words. It tells us when to slow down (such as with a comma or semicolon), when to stop (such as with a period of question mark), and when to notice something (such as with quotation marks).

With the popularity of text messaging and social media today, proper punctuation is not taken seriously. Lynne Truss makes the call for punctuation sticklers to unite, and use proper punctuation even when sending a text message to your friends.

Now for the editing mistake this week:

About 7:45 p.m. Saturday, police responded reports of shots being fired at the Far West Motel, 410 N. Main. Officers arrived to find that 52-year-old Gregory Nance had been fatally shot. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

This appeared in a Deseret News story. It was breaking news so they likely posted it as soon as possible without properly editing and fixing all of the mistakes.