Eats shoots and leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation  

I recently had a chance to read this brilliant book. Below are the brief notes that I took.

Eats, shoots and leaves 

The Tractable Apostrophe: 

  •  It indicates a possessive in a singular noun: The boy’s hat

When the possessor is plural but does not end in an “s”, the apostrophe similarly precedes the “s”: The children’s playgroundWhen the possessor is a regular plural, the apostrophe follows the “s”: The boys’ hats 

  • It indicates time or quantity: In one week’s time
  •   It indicates the omission of figures in dates: The summer of ‘68
  •  It indicates the omission of letters: Jo’burg
  • It indicates strange non-English: If yer want ter be ‘ere
  • It features in Irish names: O’Neill
  •  It indicates the plurals of letters: How many f’s are there in Fulham?
  •  It also indicates plurals of words: Are there too many but’s and and’s?

That’ll do, Comma: 

  • Commas for lists: I want lemon, strawberry, lime and orange today
  •  Commas for joining: When two complete sentences are joined together, using such conjunctions as and, or, but, while and yet: The boys wanted to stay up until midnight, but they grew tired and fell asleep.
  • Commas filling gaps: Annie had dark hair; Sally, fair.
  •  Commas before direct speech: The Queen said, “Doesn’t anyone know?”
  •  Commas setting off interjections: Stop, or I’ll scream!
  • Commas that come in pairs: In these cases, the bits between the commas can be removed, leaving the sentence arguably less interesting, but grammatically entire: The Queen, who has double the number of birthdays of most people, celebrated yet another birthday.

Colons: 

  • They Introduce part of a sentence that exemplifies, restates, elaborates, undermines, explains or balances the preceding part: I find fault with only three things in this story of yours, Jenkins: the beginning, the middle and the end.
  • They start lists (especially lists with semi-colons): In life, Jane found there were three qualities she disliked in other people: British ness; superior airs; and a feigned lack of interest in her dusting of freckles.
  • They set off book and film subtitles from the main titles: Ghandi II: The Mahatma Strikes Back.
  • They separate dramatic characters from dialogue: PHILIP: Stop it!ANNE: Why? 

Semi-colon:

  • They are placed between two related sentences where there is no conjunction such as “and” or “but”, and where a comma would be ungrammatical: I loved Opal fruits; they are now called Straburst, of course.
  • They link words such as “however”, “nevertheless”, “also”, “comsequesntly”, and “hence”: He woke up in his own bed; nevertheless, he was OK.

Exclamation Mark 

  • In involuntary ejaculations: Phew! Lord love a duck!
  •  To salute or invoke: O mistress mine! Where are you roaming?
  • To exclaim (or admire): How many goodly creatures are there here!
  • For drama: That’s ot the Northen Lights, that’s Manderely!
  • To make a commonplace sentence sound more emphatic: I could really do with some Opal Fruits!
  • To deflect potential misunderstanding of irony: I don’t mean it!

Italics: 

  • Titles of books, newspapers, films and albums
  • Emphasis of certain words
  • Foreign words and phrases
  • Examples when writing about language

Inverted Commas: 

            When the punctuation relates to the quotes words it goes inside the inverted commas; when it relates to the sentence, it goes outside.

Dash: 

            To connect or separate phrases and sentences

            Double dashes are bracketing devices:

He was (I still can’t believe this!) trying to climb in the window 

He was – I still can’t believe this! – trying to climb in the window. 

Brackets: 

  • They are used to add information, clarify, explain and illustrate.
  • They are prefect for authorial asides of various kinds: Tom Jones was blamed for some earthquakes (Isn’t that interesting?)Square brackets – An editor’s way of clarifying the meaning of a direct quote without actually changing any of the words: She had used it [Tom Jones] for quite a number of examples now 

Ellipsis: 

  • To indicate words missing … from a quoted passage.
  • To trail off in an intriguing manner

Hyphens:

  • Many words require hyphens to avoid ambiguity: words such as “co-respondent”, “re-formed”, “re-mark”. A re-formed rock band is quite different from a reformed one
  • When spelling out numbers: thirty-two, forty-nine.
  • When linking noun with nouns, and adjectives with adjectives: London-Brighton train; American-French relations
  • Certain prefixes traditionally require hyphens: un-American, anti-Apartheid.
  • When certain words are spelled out: K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M
  • To indicate that a word is unfinished and continues on the next line.
  • Hesitation and stammering are indicated by hyphens: “I reached for the w-w-w-watering can
  • When a hyphenated phrase is coming up, and you are qualifying it beforehand, it is necessary to write: He was a two-or three-year-old