Punctuation Is What Love Is All About

Do you still think that punctuation is unimportant--that commas, colons, and semicolons are as old-fashioned as typewriters and twice as annoying? If so, then consider how John must have felt when he received this email from Jane, whose disregard for correct punctuation was notorious:

Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy--will you let me be yours? Jane

Was John pleased to receive such a warm message? Not on your life. He was familiar with Jane's peculiar ways of misusing punctuation marks, and so to decipher the true meaning of her email, he was forced to re-read it with the marks altered:

Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be? Yours, Jane

True, most punctuation errors aren't quite as consequential as those in this old grammarians' joke. (A "grammarian," by the way, is a specialist in grammar--not someone who studies grandmas.) But as we've seen, correct punctuation does matter. And apparently it interests many people as well.

Recently, one of the surprise best-selling books in both England and America was Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss. Characterized as "witty" by many readers and "snotty" by others, the book playfully discusses the uses and abuses of punctuation.

Unfortunately, Truss, an English journalist, did not revise the book for its American audience. As a result, because British punctuation rules differ in a number of ways from our own, the first U.S. edition of Eats, Shoots & Leaves contains a few punctuation errors. Fortunately, the follow-up paperback edition includes a free "punctuation repair kit," with stickers for punctuation marks.