EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES

Lynne Truss British author Lynne Truss uses colons like brass knuckles and apostrophes like daggers in her witty, bestselling punctuation guide Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS BOOK? I did a radio program about punctuation, and it was while we were making it that I realized I did care, quite strongly, about these things. We interviewed the man who runs the Apostrophe Protection Society. We went for a walk, looked at signs, and he pointed out how many were badly punctuated. By the end I was telling him that he should start a militant wing and that I could lead it.

WHAT IS THE STATE OF PUNCTUATION TODAY? It's pretty dire. Internet and e-mail encourage people to be much more informal. Now everyone says, "It's only an e-mail, it doesn't matter if I don't know where capital letters go."

CAN YOU GIVE US SOME EXAMPLES OF HOW BAD THINGS HAVE GOTTEN? The film Two Weeks Notice. They should have had an apostrophe after Weeks. I saw an enormous sign in a record store which said "This Seasons CDs." It was three feet high and didn't have an apostrophe. That's wrong.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO CORRECT THESE MISTAKES? [For Two Weeks Notice] I stood on a chair outside a London cinema with an apostrophe on a stick and held it up in the right place. I feel responsible for making others notice. They are transformed from perfectly happy people to very unhappy people who are aware of the dire state of punctuation.

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN? It's a punctuation joke. A panda goes into a cafe, has a sandwich, pulls out a pistol, shoots into the air, then leaves. As he exits, the waiter asks him why he did that. The panda tosses him a. poorly punctuated wildlife manual and says, "I'm a panda, look it up." The waiter does and finds, "Panda. Large black-and-white bearlike mammal, native to China. Eats, Shoots and leaves."