Eats, shoots and leaves.

[Altissimus]

I was discussing colons with someone recently and was reminded of a book I came across some twenty years ago. It took me a while to find the line I needed, partly because I kept getting distracted by witty and wise commentary. The book is called "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss and, knowing quite a few of you on here, I imagine you'd find it very entertaining. Below are a few excerpts that distracted me this morning:

“A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

On punctuation generally

Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, UP like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over and you run out of steam anyway and then eventually with the help of three dots . . . you stop. But the thermals that benignly waft our sentences to new altitudes — that allow us to coast on air, and loop-the-loop, suspending the laws of gravity — well, they are the colons and semicolons.

The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added [... ] The period [or full stop] tells you that that is that; if you didn't get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with the semicolon there you get a pleasant feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer. [This is a quote in ES&L and is credited to Lewis Thomas]

“In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets overexcited and breaks things and laughs too loudly.”

On the comma

“Thurber was asked by a correspondent: "Why did you have a comma in the sentence, 'After dinner, the men went into the living-room'?" And his answer was probably one of the loveliest things ever said about punctuation. "This particular comma," Thurber explained, "was Ross's way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up.”

“The rule is: don’t use commas like a stupid person. I mean it.”

On the colon

So how should you use a colon, to begin with? H. W. Fowler said that the colon “delivers the goods that have been invoiced in the preceding words”, which is not a bad image to start off with.

When two statements are "placed baldly in dramatic apposition", he said, use a colon. Thus, "Luruns could not speak: he was drunk." ... When the second statement reaffirms, explains or illustrates the first, you use a colon; also when you desire an abrupt "pullup": "Luruns was congenitally literary: that is, a liar."

So the particular strengths of the colon are beginning to become clear. A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence, and in its simplest usage it rather theatrically announces what is to come. Like a well-trained magician’s assistant, it pauses slightly to give you time to get a bit worried, and then efficiently whisks away the cloth and reveals the trick complete.

On the semi-colon

The semicolon has been rightly called "a compliment from the writer to the reader". And a mighty compliment it is, too. The sub-text of a semicolon is, "Now this is a hint. The elements of this sentence, although grammatically distinct, are actually elements of a single notion. I can make it plainer for you - but hey! You're a reader! I don't need to draw you a map!" By the same token, however, an overreliance on semicolons - to give an air of authorial intention to half-formed ideas thrown together on the page - is rather more of a compliment than some of us care to receive.

I have been told that the dying words of one famous 20th-century writer were, "I should have used fewer semicolons" - and although I have spent months fruitlessly trying to track down the chap responsible, I believe it none the less. If it turns out that no one actually did say this on their deathbed, I shall certainly save it up for my own.

Expectation is what these stops are about; expectation and elastic energy. Like internal springs, they propel you forward in a sentence towards more information, and the essential difference between them is that while the semicolon lightly propels you in any direction related to the foregoing ("Whee! Surprise me!"), the colon nudges you along lines already subtly laid down. How can such useful marks be optional, for heaven's sake? As for the other thing, if they are middle-class, I'm a serviette. Of the objections to the colon and semicolon listed above, there is only one I am prepared to concede: that semicolons are dangerously habit-forming. Many writers hooked on semicolons become an embarrassment to their families and friends. Their agents gently remind them, "George Orwell managed without, you know. And look what happened to Marcel Proust: carry on like this and you're only one step away from a cork-lined room!" But the writers rock back and forth on their office chairs, softly tapping the semicolon key and emitting low whimpers. I hear there are now Knightsbridge clinics offering semicolonic irrigation - but for many it may be too late.

On the apostrophe

“The rule is: the word 'it's' (with apostrophe) stands for 'it is' or 'it has'. If the word does not stand for 'it is' or 'it has' then what you require is 'its'. This is extremely easy to grasp. Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.”

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, though greatly accelerated. First there is shock. Within seconds, shock gives way to disbelief, disbelief to pain, and pain to anger. 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.

Other

Everyday, you get home from the shops with a bag of cat food and bin-liners and realise that, yet again, you failed to have cosmetic surgery, book a cheap weekend in Paris, change your name to something more glamorous, buy the fifth series of The Sopranos, divorce your spouse, sell up and move to Devon, or adopt a child from Guatemala.

Once someone has shown you a convincingly different way of looking at the world, it's hard to remember how you saw it before.

“Manners are about imagination, ultimately. They are about imagining being the other person.”

“The reason it's worth standing up for punctuation is not that it's an arbitrary system of notation known only to an over-sensitive elite who have attacks of the vapours when they see it misapplied. The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning.”

It's not a long book, and I implore you to find it and take a read.

 

[SimonDoom]

I was discussing colons with someone recently and was reminded of a book I came across some twenty years ago. It took me a while to find the line I needed, partly because I kept getting distracted by witty and wise commentary. The book is called "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss and, knowing quite a few of you on here, I imagine you'd find it very entertaining. Below are a few excerpts that distracted me this morning:



On punctuation generally









On the comma





On the colon







On the semi-colon







On the apostrophe





Other









It's not a long book, and I implore you to find it and take a read.

This is almost like porn to me.

 

[XerXesXu]

You raise an interesting point. The book's still in copyright. Is this Fair Dealing within S29 the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is like porn to me.

 

[ColinPiper]

I was discussing colons with someone recently...

Oh yes, please continue.

 

[Djmac1031]

Eats, shoots and leaves also sounds like a lot of women's major problem with the men they date...

 

[Altissimus]

Eats, shoots and leaves also sounds like a lot of women's major problem with the men they date...

Only you could make an innocuous punctuation title sound like click-bait on a lit site.

Well... okay... not only you... but I'm completely innocent, ya hear?

 

[Altissimus]

You raise an interesting point. The book's still in copyright. Is this Fair Dealing within S29 the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is like porn to me.

I'm both quoting and assigning credit (including where the credit is actually not the author's). Well within the concept of fair dealing for copyright works.

 

[XerXesXu]

I'm both quoting and assigning credit (including where the credit is actually not the author's). Well within the concept of fair dealing for copyright works.

You worry me. We're not talking about plagiarism, where quoting and assigning credit is an academic requirement. In copyright law it's the very fact of quoting that constitutes the infringement.

 

[BobbyLaker]

I was discussing colons with someone recently and was reminded of a book I came across some twenty years ago. It took me a while to find the line I needed, partly because I kept getting distracted by witty and wise commentary. The book is called "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss and, knowing quite a few of you on here, I imagine you'd find it very entertaining. Below are a few excerpts that distracted me this morning:



On punctuation generally





On the comma




On the colon





On the semi-colon





On the apostrophe




Other






It's not a long book, and I implore you to find it and take a read.

Great tip - thanks @Altissimus.
Just ordered a copy for £2.78 inc. delivery. Should be here by the weekend.
Cheers

 

[Djmac1031]

Only you could make an innocuous punctuation title sound like click-bait on a lit site.

Well... okay... not only you... but I'm completely innocent, ya hear?

It's what I do.

Would actually love to join in on this more but work calls.

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

I was discussing colons with someone recently and was reminded of a book I came across some twenty years ago.

I wanted to like, love, and laugh at this; it only let me choose one, sadly.

 

[Altissimus]

You worry me. We're not talking about plagiarism, where quoting and assigning credit is an academic requirement. In copyright law it's the very fact of quoting that constitutes the infringement.

Apologies, I'm still not sure what you're driving at. Quoting excerpts in this context isn't a breach of copyright. As I understand it, 'Fair dealing' is a defence after the fact, if sued for copyright infringement, but I have not infringed copyright with this thread. UK Gov Exceptions to Copyright, page 3.

 

[XerXesXu]

Apologies, I'm still not sure what you're driving at. Quoting excerpts in this context isn't a breach of copyright. As I understand it, 'Fair dealing' is a defence after the fact, if sued for copyright infringement, but I have not infringed copyright with this thread. UK Gov Exceptions to Copyright, page 3.

You've gutted a short educational book of all is essential passages and published them to the world. Which head of Fair Dealing do you claim to have done this under?

 

[ElectricBlue]

The wombat eats, roots, shoots and leaves. Nobody gets the full expression right, except your eastern hairy nosed wombat.

 

[SimonDoom]

You've gutted a short educational book of all is essential passages and published them to the world. Which head of Fair Dealing do you claim to have done this under?

It looks like it qualifies as "fair dealing" within the meaning given on page 5 of the government pamphlet he cited.

1. He didn't gut anything. The book is 240 pages long, according to Amazon, and he quoted a few short passages.
2. The quotations are for the purposes of commentary or perhaps reporting. He wants people to know about the book.
3. He gave acknowledgment. The pamphlet he linked to says that this is a factor to consider on the issue of fair dealing.
4. His quote cannot possibly have a negative economic impact on the book. On the contrary it could be seen as a form of promotion that might encourage a few Lit authors (like me) to buy it.
5. It's so minimal that there's zero risk of the author being upset about this.

I think he has a strong case that this is an instance of fair dealing under British law, based on that government pamphlet.

Since it's a British publisher, British copyright law would apply, but if US law applied I think the analysis and result would be the same. The Site owners are American, so they'd be likely to use US law to determine if it meets their guidelines on infringement and plagiarism, and I would think it would.

 

[Altissimus]

You've gutted a short educational book of all is essential passages and published them to the world. Which head of Fair Dealing do you claim to have done this under?

Ok, that's enough. That's a significant exaggeration. Further, I've done so partly in the context of recommending the book, and at least one person has ordered a copy. Further, these quotes are all already on-line; nothing I've quoted isn't already in the public domain. If you have an issue, report the thread. I have nothing more to say on this topic.

 

[XerXesXu]

I think he has a strong case that this is an instance of fair dealing under British law, based on that government pamphlet.

Since it's a British publisher, British copyright law would apply, but if US law applied I think the analysis and result would be the same. The Site owners are American, so they'd be likely to use US law to determine if it meets their guidelines on infringement and plagiarism, and I would think it would.

1. What head of Fair Dealing does he assert under the Act? You'll note that he now expressly does not now assert one.
2. If the copyright holders bring proceedings against both he and Lit, United States law would not be a defence open to Lit, no DCMA defence, no S230 Safe Harbor Immunity, no Good Samaritan Immunity. They apply only within the jurisdiction of the USA.

That he's unlikely to be the subject of proceedings makes no less interesting the issues his usage raises.

 

[NoTalentHack]

By the same token, however, an overreliance on semicolons - to give an air of authorial intention to half-formed ideas thrown together on the page - is rather more of a compliment than some of us care to receive.

I feel personally attacked; moreover...

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I forgot what an acerbic style that book had. Delightful! The only grammar book I've ever read cover to cover voluntarily for fun.

Thanks for the memories, @Altissimus .

 

[SimonDoom]

1. What head of Fair Dealing does he assert under the Act? You'll note that he now expressly does not now assert one.
2. If the copyright holders bring proceedings against both he and Lit, United States law would not be a defence open to Lit, no DCMA defence, no S230 Safe Harbor Immunity, no Good Samaritan Immunity. They apply only within the jurisdiction of the USA.

That he's unlikely to be the subject of proceedings makes no less interesting the issues his usage raises.

I'm not an expert on UK copyright law, but I located this via a quick online search. Section 30(1) of the Act (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48) provides in relevant part:

(1) Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of criticism or review, of that or another work or of a performance of a work, does not infringe any copyright in the work provided that it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement (unless this would be impossible for reasons of practicality or otherwise)] [and provided that the work has been made available to the public].

(1ZA) Copyright in a work is not infringed by the use of a quotation from the work (whether for criticism or review or otherwise) provided that—

(a) the work has been made available to the public,

(b) the use of the quotation is fair dealing with the work,

(c) the extent of the quotation is no more than is required by the specific purpose for which it is used, and

(d) the quotation is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement (unless this would be impossible for reasons of practicality or otherwise).


I haven't read any of the applicable UK case law, but it would appear to me that his quotation satisfies these requirements. The work was released to the public for sale. He quoted sparingly from it. He did so for the purpose of commentary. His quotation is no more than is necessary for his purpose in highlighting its amusing and useful nature. He provided a sufficient acknowledgment. There is no possible theory of damage or injury. I would think that any sane copyright owner would be grateful to see her work advertised in this way so as to promote its sales.

 

[Fatdog25]

Eats, shoots and leaves also sounds like a lot of women's major problem with the men they date...

My first thought this morning after seeing the title was that it's an excellent Lit story title, too.

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: My Life as a Gigolo

I need coffee.

 

[LexxRuthless]

I was discussing colons with someone recently and was reminded of a book I came across some twenty years ago. It took me a while to find the line I needed, partly because I kept getting distracted by witty and wise commentary. The book is called "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss and, knowing quite a few of you on here, I imagine you'd find it very entertaining. Below are a few excerpts that distracted me this morning:



On punctuation generally





On the comma




On the colon





On the semi-colon





On the apostrophe




Other






It's not a long book, and I implore you to find it and take a read.

Ah, thank you for the reminder. I bought this book over 20 years ago, and it's in one of my boxes following our last move. Definitely worth the time it will take me to dig it out for another read. I thought your review was very well done.

Side note: That's the fastest anyone in the AH has ever made it onto my ignore list. Not the most creative trolling I've ever seen, but it makes the top-100 for most obnoxious. Pseudo-lawyering always makes my trigger finger itchy.

 

[SimonDoom]

Back to the OP's original post. I would add one qualification to the message of the original cited text. Colons, semicolons, and dashes have their uses in fiction, and I use them all, but you have to be careful about not using them too much, or the usage can start to appear mannered, or like a writing tic. If your writing is stuffed full of too many colons, semicolons, and commas, it might be a good idea to shorten your sentences and replace some of the other punctuation with periods (full stops).

 

[Altissimus]

Ah, thank you for the reminder. I bought this book over 20 years ago, and it's in one of my boxes following our last move. Definitely worth the time it will take me to dig it out for another read. I thought your review was very well done.

Side note: That's the fastest anyone in the AH has ever made it onto my ignore list. Not the most creative trolling I've ever seen, but it makes the top-100 for most obnoxious. Pseudo-lawyering always makes my trigger finger itchy.

I looked in the garage; didn't check the attic. Pretty sure it's up there now that you've said this. Gonna dig it out and return it to its rightful place in my study.

 

[Altissimus]

Back to the OP's original post. I would add one qualification to the message of the original cited text. Colons, semicolons, and dashes have their uses in fiction, and I use them all, but you have to be careful about not using them too much, or the usage can start to appear mannered, or like a writing tic. If your writing is stuffed full of too many colons, semicolons, and commas, it might be a good idea to shorten your sentences and replace some of the other punctuation with periods (full stops).

No no no. Completely wrong. Otherwise, how could I have passages like this?

She slipped her work daypack from her back, lowering it carefully to the floor: it wouldn’t be good to bounce her laptop. The bag was drenched, but she knew it was waterproof; it could wait a little longer. She pulled off her coat, leaving it on the back of the kitchen chair to drip-dry onto the floor. Her long, wet hair immediately soaked the back of her sweater, but that didn’t matter as the rain had already leaked through: everything she wore was damp. Some food, and a shower… maybe not in that order. She shivered; it was too cold to have wet hair and damp clothes. A hot shower was exactly what she needed.

Thing is, I know that that's too many (semi-)colons, but... it's right as it is. Sigh. I'll have to re-structure, but... Sigh.