What I Learned from EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES

The humorous punctuation book Eats, Shoots & Leaves made excellent bedtime reading. I finished it. But before putting it away, I'd like to summarize (partly for myself) what I learned.

First I learned that I'm a "punctuation vigilante" - or, at least, I became one in my job as an English teacher, daily correcting punctuation errors in students' writing. I learned that writers and editors often become punctuation vigilantes, too, as they strive to get it "right." And like teachers, not all editors agree on what is "right" or "wrong."

Why is it so hard to get it right?! Because punctuation isn't an exact science. It's in flux - and changes over time. The first punctuation marks were developed in the fourth century by St. Jerome. These were marks added to hand-written manuscripts to indicate when and how long readers should pause when reading aloud to others. At that time, most people couldn't read, so they had to be read aloud to. Punctuation marks as we know them were only added to text after the invention of the printing press. Two fifteenth-century printers began to add marks to clarify meaning as well as indicate pauses.

Even today, although the basics remain the same, different magazines and newspapers have their own style guides - and they don't necessarily concur, especially when it comes to apostrophes after  the letter "s": Is it Keats' poems? Or Keats's poems? Each periodical decides how they are going to do it.

Other differences include whether a period goes inside or outside quotation marks. Americans put the period inside, the British outside: "This is what I mean." (American) "This is what I mean". (British)

I learned that one of my favorite punctuation marks - ?! - a question mark followed by an exclamation mark actually has a name. It's called an "interrobang." It's a relatively new punctuation mark - invented in 1962 (when I was in high school). The Wikipedia article (linked to above) puts one on top of the other. I definitely don't write it like that, so I'm not sure if they are bother the same "interrobang" mark.

I was reminded that three dots (...) are called ellipsis. Apparently they are increasingly being used, mostly in informal writing, such as emails. I use them a lot in my blogs - together with interrobangs.

People are beginning to write words together, without spaces, thanks to texting. We now also create pictures with punctuation: Emoticons...
:)
:(

That's about it! Eats, Shoots & Leaves was great bedtime reading: Informative and funny. It induced no nightmares!

Now I'm about to start the next punctuation book that has landed on my desk,... Missed Periods.

I hope I enjoy it just as much!