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Usenet Posted 22 years ago
Usage
Eats, Shoots & Leaves -- A first impression
(Emailed to Andrew Franklin of Profile Books, and posted to alt.usage.english.)
Dear Sir,
I opened all my Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, same as usual. As predicted, my brother had bought me the Christmas best-seller, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.
My first impressions, having read only the 34-page introductory chapter:
1. Shouldn't "Zero Tolerance" in the title bear a hyphen?
2. The next book should be titled (Witty phrase): TheZero-Tolerance Approach to Typography . This one looks as if it was set on MS Word.
3. "Why don't we use capital letters for all nouns any more?" (p.
22). Did we ever, in modern English? Not as far as I know.
4. "There is a rumour that in parts of the Civil > Serviceworkers have been pragmatically instructed to omit apostrophes..." (p. 27). If punctuation is supposed to aid clarity, wouldn't a comma after "Service" help, especially in view of the line break between "Civil" and "Service"?
5. " Eats, Shoots & Leaves is not a book about grammar. I'm nota grammarian" (p. 32). Should be a semicolon between the clauses, n'est ce pas ?
6. "A degree in English language is not a prerequisite for caringabout where a bracket is preferred to a dash" (p. 32). I have tried to think of such a case, and failed. I think she meant "parenthesis".
7. Yes, it is possible to over-use the word "meanwhile", thankyou!
8. Where am I supposed to place a book marked "Reference/Humour", according to the Dewey Decimal system?
Conclusion: I don't care if there are "issues"; this book does it for my kinky linguistic gene.
Simon R. Hughes
Dear Sir,
I opened all my Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, same as usual. As predicted, my brother had bought me the Christmas best-seller, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.
My first impressions, having read only the 34-page introductory chapter:
1. Shouldn't "Zero Tolerance" in the title bear a hyphen?
2. The next book should be titled (Witty phrase): TheZero-Tolerance Approach to Typography . This one looks as if it was set on MS Word.
3. "Why don't we use capital letters for all nouns any more?" (p.
22). Did we ever, in modern English? Not as far as I know.
4. "There is a rumour that in parts of the Civil > Serviceworkers have been pragmatically instructed to omit apostrophes..." (p. 27). If punctuation is supposed to aid clarity, wouldn't a comma after "Service" help, especially in view of the line break between "Civil" and "Service"?
5. " Eats, Shoots & Leaves is not a book about grammar. I'm nota grammarian" (p. 32). Should be a semicolon between the clauses, n'est ce pas ?
6. "A degree in English language is not a prerequisite for caringabout where a bracket is preferred to a dash" (p. 32). I have tried to think of such a case, and failed. I think she meant "parenthesis".
7. Yes, it is possible to over-use the word "meanwhile", thankyou!
8. Where am I supposed to place a book marked "Reference/Humour", according to the Dewey Decimal system?
Conclusion: I don't care if there are "issues"; this book does it for my kinky linguistic gene.
Simon R. Hughes
Top answer
[nq:1]2. The next book should be titled (Witty phrase): The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Typography . [/nq] Major quibble, Simon: It's not Word 's fault it's the morons without any training in typography, cursed with a tin eye, and lacking all sense for aesthetics who produce visual garbage and should not be allowed access to any typesetting or word-processing equipment.
- [nq:1]2.
- The next book should be titled (Witty phrase): The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Typography .
- [/nq] Major quibble, Simon: It's not Word 's fault it's the morons without any training in typography, cursed with a tin eye, and lacking all sense for aesthetics who produce visual garbage and should not be allowed access to any typesetting or word-processing equipment.
- Those cretins use "straight ticks" (" ') instead of "curly quotes" and genuine apostrophes, two hypens ( ) instead of en- and em-dashes, have no idea about leading, kerning, and margins, mix six typefaces on one page, typeset books in Times Roman or other unsuited faces, and commit other atrocities.
- ) to typeset all my books and other publications.
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105 Answers
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[nq:1]2. The next book should be titled (Witty phrase): The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Typography . This one looks as if it was set on MS Word.[/nq]
Major quibble, Simon: It's not Word 's fault it's the morons without any training in typography, cursed with a tin eye, and lacking all sense for aesthetics who produce visual garbage and should not be allowed access to any typesetting or w
Major quibble, Simon: It's not Word 's fault it's the morons without any training in typography, cursed with a tin eye, and lacking all sense for aesthetics who produce visual garbage and should not be allowed access to any typesetting or w
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Thus spake Reinhold (Rey) Aman:
[nq:2]2. The next book should be titled (Witty phrase): ... one looks as if it was set on MS Word.[/nq]
[nq:1] Major quibble, Simon: It's not Word 's fault it's the morons without any training in typography, cursed ... all sense for aesthetics who produce visual garbage and should not be allowed access to any typesetting or word-processing equipment.[
[nq:2]2. The next book should be titled (Witty phrase): ... one looks as if it was set on MS Word.[/nq]
[nq:1] Major quibble, Simon: It's not Word 's fault it's the morons without any training in typography, cursed ... all sense for aesthetics who produce visual garbage and should not be allowed access to any typesetting or word-processing equipment.[
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[nq:1]1. The wordspacing is uneven (a result of fully justified, large type on small pages)[/nq]
At times justified text is hideously ugly. I don't understand why so many feel compelled to use it. And I'm no fan of Bill Gates, but you can't blame someone's decision to justify the text on MS Word.
[nq:1]giving the text uneven colour. Pages 29 and 32 are the worst examples I have found so fa
At times justified text is hideously ugly. I don't understand why so many feel compelled to use it. And I'm no fan of Bill Gates, but you can't blame someone's decision to justify the text on MS Word.
[nq:1]giving the text uneven colour. Pages 29 and 32 are the worst examples I have found so fa
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[nq:1](Emailed to Andrew Franklin of Profile Books, and posted to alt.usage.english.) Dear Sir,[/nq]
snip
[nq:1]Conclusion: I don't care if there are "issues"; this book does it for my kinky linguistic gene.[/nq]
I've been enjoying it as well is there anyone in this group who didn't get at least one copy for Christmas? but have spotted a few curious things.
One th
[nq:1]Conclusion: I don't care if there are "issues"; this book does it for my kinky linguistic gene.[/nq]
I've been enjoying it as well is there anyone in this group who didn't get at least one copy for Christmas? but have spotted a few curious things.
One th
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[nq:1]On 25 Dec 2003, Simon R. Hughes wrote[/nq]
I remember her as a TV critic and general columnist in the Times some years ago. She has a very sharp wit and sense of humour. I would guess she was conveying that she got the joke, understood that the misplaced apostrophe was an essential part of it but nevertheless couldn't bear to look at it. I didn't get a copy - I had browsed the thi
I remember her as a TV critic and general columnist in the Times some years ago. She has a very sharp wit and sense of humour. I would guess she was conveying that she got the joke, understood that the misplaced apostrophe was an essential part of it but nevertheless couldn't bear to look at it. I didn't get a copy - I had browsed the thi
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[nq:1]At times justified text is hideously ugly. I don't understand why so many feel compelled to use it.[/nq]
Because it enables the reader to see the paragraphs easily, without needing extra leading (whitespace) between them.
Mark Brader "The design of the lowercase e in text faces Toronto produces strong feelings (or should do so)." (Email Removed) Walter Tracy
Because it enables the reader to see the paragraphs easily, without needing extra leading (whitespace) between them.
Mark Brader "The design of the lowercase e in text faces Toronto produces strong feelings (or should do so)." (Email Removed) Walter Tracy
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[nq:2]At times justified text is hideously ugly. I don't understand why so many feel compelled to use it.[/nq]
[nq:1]Because it enables the reader to see the paragraphs easily, without needing extra leading (whitespace) between them.[/nq]
I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space anyway. Full justification doesn't
[nq:1]Because it enables the reader to see the paragraphs easily, without needing extra leading (whitespace) between them.[/nq]
I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space anyway. Full justification doesn't
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[nq:2]Because it enables the reader to see the paragraphs easily, without needing extra leading (whitespace) between them.[/nq]
[nq:1]I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space anyway. Full justification doesn't improve readability one iota, and it can diminish it severely in relatively narrow columns.[/nq]
Examples
[nq:1]I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space anyway. Full justification doesn't improve readability one iota, and it can diminish it severely in relatively narrow columns.[/nq]
Examples
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[nq:1]I assume we're talking about "full justification" here. Paragraphs should always be separated by a little extra space anyway. Full justification doesn't improve readability one iota, and it can diminish it severely in relatively narrow columns.[/nq]
And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a nonjustified one.
Besides, even without skipping a line in between paragrap
And more pages. A justified document is always longer than a nonjustified one.
Besides, even without skipping a line in between paragrap
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[nq:1]6. "A degree in English language is not a prerequisite for caring about where a bracket is preferred to a dash" (p. 32). I have tried to think of such a case, and failed. I think she meant "parenthesis".[/nq]
I'd defend her usage here. Is a parenthesis not, strictly, the punctuation mark but the words separated from the main body of the sentence by the dashes, brackets, even comma
I'd defend her usage here. Is a parenthesis not, strictly, the punctuation mark but the words separated from the main body of the sentence by the dashes, brackets, even comma
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