Just finished reading Lynne Truss’s wonderful book: Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
Who would believe a book on punctuation could be so amusing?
I wish my English teacher had the same entertaining style and ease of expression. If you have ever been stumped by the apostrophe, confused by the colon, or bewildered by the humble dash – this book is for you.
What did this book teach me?
- My desire to insert a comma at the end of a complicated list, to improve the meaning of the sentence, to aid the reader’s understanding, and just because it feels, well, the right thing to do, is perfectly legitimate. This wonderful extra comma even has an official term: the Oxford comma.
- I understand the apostrophe’s mysteries a little better. I think.
- I can relax about my obsession with semicolons; a handy little linking thingy when a comma just won’t do but a full stop is too final.
- And I may actually understand the purpose of the colon: a device to bind two separate phrases together in a firm connection.
Anyway, if you are still confused, or want to know how the difference between a dash and a hyphen – read this awe-inspiring book. You can buy it on Amazon: follow this link…
Oh, and this combination of three dots … has a name: an ellipsis.
Ruth Livingstone 
Good fun, yes, but many academics disagree with some of her assertions including: ‘on the use of the ‘Oxford comma’ ‘.
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@Ruth
I heard about that book but didn’t by it because I had a creative writing textbook from the OU that included a section on punctuation. You’ve summarised it concisely.
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