Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation is a non-fiction book by . It was first published in 2003. The book talks about how punctuation is used incorrectly in modern English and why it is important to use it correctly. Truss writes with humour while teaching punctuation rules.  

 About the book   
The book has chapters on different punctuation marks, including:  
 Apostrophes  
 Commas  
 Semicolons and colons  
 Exclamation marks, question marks, and quotation marks  
 Italics, dashes, brackets, ellipses, and Emoticons  
 Hyphens  

Truss also shares stories and history about punctuation.  

 Title meaning   
The title comes from a joke about bad punctuation:  

The comma in the wrong place changes the meaning of the sentence. Without it, the sentence means a panda eats plant shoots and leaves. With the comma, it sounds like the panda eats, then shoots a gun, and leaves the café. This joke shows why punctuation is important.  

 Success and criticism   
The book became very popular, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was on The New York Times bestseller list in 2004. However, some people criticized the book.  

 , a writer for The New Yorker, found punctuation mistakes in the book. He said it was strange for a British person to teach Americans about punctuation.

 , a linguist, wrote a book called The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot and Left in 2006. He said Truss and other grammar writers try to stop the English language from changing.  
 Some people felt the book made people too strict about punctuation. In 2007, comedian  said it made people into "grammar bullies".  

 Children's version   
In 2006, a children's version of the book was published. It was called Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference!. This version used cartoons to show how commas change meanings.

 Related pages 
 Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod  a similar book in German
 Standard English

 Notes   


 References 












 Other websites   


Category:2003 books
Category:Style guides