Comments on: Sticklers unite?

By: Sligunner

Sligunner — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:06:57 +0000

There’s something unbearably irksome about this writer’s righteous indignation over the mis-use of the apostrophe. I don’t believe it does make her THAT angry for one minute; her clumsy rants are more about showing how clever Lynne Truss is. I’m as concerned about falling standards of punctuation as she is. But I hate this book with a passion, and have from the moment it was first published. It’s no ‘Tipping Point’, that’s for sure.

By: Never too early to get started « Mighty Red Pen

Never too early to get started « Mighty Red Pen — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:15:22 +0000

[...] to become, he wrote a comment to the Smithsonian, pointing out their error (oh, how he would make Lynne Truss proud). And they wrote back, acknowledging the error. According to the article, “The solution [...]

By: Have typo? Will travel. « Mighty Red Pen

Have typo? Will travel. « Mighty Red Pen — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:07:55 +0000

[...] the rage-driven prescriptivism vigilantes favored by Lynne Truss in Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Jeff and Benjamin are humorous and insightful [...]

By: Kasey

Kasey — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:37:58 +0000

I confess. I have a copy. Never read it. At least I think I had one… if I don’t have it anymore, I will go buy a new copy. I have a 25% coupon for Borders.

Here I go.

By: goofy

goofy — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:01:19 +0000

That’s exactly the problem I had with this book as well: her irrational anger. That plus her strange view that “proper punctuation is the cause of clear thinking”, her belief that text messaging will destroy the language, and her lack of evidence to back all this up.

By: mightyredpen

mightyredpen — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:24:56 +0000

Yes, but . . . don’t you think she kind of gives word nerds a bad name? For example: “For any true stickler, you see, the sight of the plural word “Book’s” with an apostrophe in it will trigger a ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavement. . . . Finally (and this is where the analogy breaks down), anger gives way to a righteous urge to perpetrate an act of criminal damage with the aid of a permanent marker.”

I mean, obviously I care about punctuation but I don’t think it rises to that kind of a level. It seems a tad, um, extreme. And also makes us sound like a bunch of vigilante vandal kooks.

By: JD

JD — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:39:28 +0000

I think the best thing about ES&L is that it showed there is an incredible interest in language use among the general population… that book sold by the bucketload here in the UK. I wonder how many of the readers fell into the ’stark raving punctuation banshee’ category themselves?

By: Gez

Gez — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:37:32 +0000

“Punctuation banshee” — I like that phrase. I also like Truss’s violent fantasies; they were the best thing about the book. She’s definitely as mad as a bag of cats.