Eats Shoots And Leaves Summary

"Eats Shoots & Leaves," by Lynne Truss, is a small book containing both humor and the rules of English punctuation. The title of this book comes from a joke about a wildlife manual with poor punctuation that said a giant panda "eats, shoots & leaves," which is a verb, verb, and verb. The way it should have been written is "eats shoots and leaves," which is a verb, noun, and noun. The different punctuation changes the meaning of the phrase.
Truss divides the book into a several chapters to emphasize individual punctuations marks, starting with the "tractable apostrophe." The apostrophe was first put into use by the English language in the 16th century. The apostrophe indicates a possessive in a singular noun, as in "The boy's hat." It also indicates time or quantity for example, "In one weeks time." Apostrophes can indicate the omission of both figures in dates and letters. An apostrophe is used for
Truss writes, "Everyone knows the exclamation mark – or exclamation point, as it is known in America. It comes at the end of a sentence…Here's one! And here's another!" The exclamation point is mainly used for involuntary ejaculations, to salute or invoke, to exclaim or admire, for drama, or to make a sentence more emphatic.
According to Truss, the hyphen is a little used punctuation mark. Truss gives several straightforward examples of appropriate use for the hyphen. An example would be to use a hyphen when certain words are to be spelled out: "K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M."
In the final chapter Truss explains her thoughts one last time, showing several disconnected examples to defend her thoughts. She writes, "…it is a matter for despair to see punctuation chucked out by people who don't know the difference between who and whose, and whose bloody "grammar checker" can't tell the difference either." Truss also argues that the use of e-mail has ruined the quality of people's