xxvii, 209 pages ; 20 cm

We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the internet, in email, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Lynne Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with

Originally published in Great Britain in 2003 by Profile Books

Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-209)

Foreword / Frank McCourt -- Publisher's note -- Preface -- Introduction: Seventh sense -- Tractable apostrophe -- That'll do, comma -- Airs and graces -- Cutting a dash -- Little used punctuation mark -- Merely conventional signs -- Bibliography

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