posted 01-07-2004 08:35 AM                       

Punctuation is important. Would you write:

"A panda eats shoots and leaves"

or

"A panda eats, shoots, and leaves"?

http://faculty.whatcom.ctc.edu/kdalen/handouts/fun.htm

quote:

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A panda goes into a bar and says, "Give me a beer and a sandwich."
After he finishes his meal, he pulls out his six-shooter, shoots up the bar, and makes a quick exit.
The proprietor runs after him yelling, "Why did you do that?"
The panda responds, "Because that's what pandas do. If you don't believe me look it up in the dictionary."
Later that night the proprietor looks "panda" up in the dictionary. It said:

panda (pan da), n., pl. -das. 1. A white-and-black bearlike mammal native to central China. A panda eats shoots and leaves. 2. A reddish brown, racoonlike mammal of the Himalayas.

A panda eats shoots and leaves?
or
A panda eats, shoots, and leaves

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quote:

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"Eats, Shoots and Leaves"

This new book, subtitled "The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Punctuation," has become an instant best-seller in England. Its author is Lynne Truss, a London theater critic and columnist whose zeal for proper punctuation is tempered by a wry sense of humor.

The title derives from one of the book's numerous jokes. A panda goes into a bar, orders a sandwich, fires a gun and heads for the door. Why did he do that? The barman calls after him. The panda tosses him a badly punctuated wildlife manual. "I'm a panda," he says. "Look me up." The barman finds the relevant page, which says, "Panda. Large black-and-white, bearlike mammal native of China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Truss calls semicolons and colons "old-fashioned, middle-class, and dangerously addictive," and says exclamation points are "like laughing at your own jokes." Ouch! I use far too many of these, and will henceforth try to cease and desist whenever possible.

She also notes that "Gertrude Stein called the comma servile and refused to have anything to do with it." Memo, to self: fewer commas, please!

You can order the book from amazon.uk now, or wait 'til next year when it's published in the U.S.: Truss has received a $110,000 advance! Oops, there I go again!

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