This week I’ve been sharing some of the fun and interesting
lessons on punctuation I’m learning from Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne
Truss, who’s wickedly funny. That made me think to end on a humorous note which
I will do by displaying a few punctuation ‘horror stories’ Truss discovered:
“Next week: nouns and apostrophe’s! (BBC website advertising
a grammar course for children)
Pupil’s entrance (on a very selective school, presumably)
Adult Learner’s Week (lucky him)
Pansy’s ready (is she?)
Cyclist’s only (his only what?)”
Do you notice grammar gaffs? Are you confident about your
skills? I feel pretty good about mine in relation to everything I’ve mentioned
here this week, but I’ve yet to read the chapter on the colon and semicolon,
the one on dashes, or the one on the hyphen, which Truss calls ‘a little used
punctuation mark.’ We’ll see how good I feel after reading those chapters…
Anyway. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings about this book, and
the quizzes, and have a fabulous weekend!
6 comments:
I just read through all of this week's posts. My kinda stuff.
Yes, I definitely notice spelling, punctuation and grammatical gaffes, even when I don't want to notice them. No matter how many times I tell my internal editor to shut up, she insists on pointing out every darned error in everything "we" read.
To me, poor punctuation and grammar can ruin an otherwise good book or article. It's like encountering a bunch of speed bumps on the autobahn.
One (just one?) of my biggests gaffs is the use of "conjunction" and "contractions". The way I remember the difference is the TV children's song, "Conjunction Junction, what's your function?" and the joke about the woman in labor yelling, "Aren't! Isn't! Can't!" Husband asks the doctor why she's hollering those words. Doc says, "She's having contractions."
Btw, I had a case of HFMD this week. Most painful condition ever.
(what? you don't know what that is? Google it and find out)
I'm sorry I've been so busy this week and haven't complimented you on these posts before now. I read that book quite some time ago and loved it. I especially liked the stickers that came with it.
Love,
Janie
I love that book! However, I still make plenty of grammar typos and spelling typos. I try to type too fast. I do notice grammar errors in the world around me, but I comment less now that I have messed up basic grammar skill basics so many times in comments, posts, and even, sadly, in my novels.
Susan, I completely agree; bad grammar and/or punctuation can kill a book for me.
Huntress, my sister and her family just got it too! WTH?
Janie. Damn! I wish I bought it new! I would've loved some stickers!
Tyrean, I'm really enjoying it. Hopefully that means the lessons will stick!
Yep, I notice. There are a few blogs dedicated to making fun of some of these. There's one for misused apostrophes if I remember correctly.
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