An Educational Companion to

EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES

by Lynne Truss
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Introduction: The Seventh Sense (pages 1-34)

While completing the exercises in this book, keep in mind these differences
between American English and British English:

1. Parentheses are called brackets.

2. Periods are called full stops.
3. Exclamation points are called exclamation marks.
4. 7:30 is written 7.30.
5. Americans place all terminal punctuation inside closing quotation marks, while
British usage sometimes “picks and chooses.”

Exercises Guaranteed to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler

1) Take a walk or drive through your village, town, or city and write down signs or
advertisements that are egregiously punctuated. Look particularly for those
“pesky apostrophes” and “delightful/horrific examples of idiotic sign-writing.”
(Should you become obsessed with these outings, we suggest you wear a
disguise and whip out your notebook when no one is looking. You do not want to
be recognized as one of Lynne Truss’s sticklers on the prowl!)

2) When you have found a sign with a punctuation error, write a courteous letter
explaining the correct use of the apostrophe and “express the gentle wish that,
should the offending ‘Bob,s Pets’ sign, for example, be replaced, this well meant
guidance might be borne in mind.” These letters won’t be necessary, after the
A.P.S. (Apostrophe Protection Society) has created a more militant wing.

3) Look through your local newspaper and find errors such as, “DEAD SONS
PHOTOS MAY BE RELEASED.”

4) Look on Amazon for a film/book review and, keeping in mind Lynne Truss’
rules, correct the punctuation.
5) Imagine that you are trying to persuade a non-stickler that punctuation is
important. Come up with at least three reasons.
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The Tractable Apostrophe (pages 35-67)

Do not take the apostrophe’s talent for adaptability for granted. Take it seriously
and end its suffering by learning the following eight rules:

1. The apostrophe indicates a possessive in a singular noun.

The boy’s hat.
1a. When the possessor is plural, but does not end in an “s,” the apostrophe
similarly
precedes the “s”:
The children’s playground.
The women’s movement.
1b. But when the possessor is a regular plural, the apostrophe follows the “s”:
The boys’ hats. (more than one boy)
2. The apostrophe indicates time or quantity.
In one week’s time.
Four yards’ worth.
Two weeks’ time.
3. The apostrophe indicates the omission of figures in dates:
The summer of ’68.
4. The apostrophe indicates the omission of letters:
We can’t go to Jo’burg (We cannot go to Johannesburg.)
4a. Most famously of all, the apostrophe of omission creates the word “it’s”:
It’s (it is) your turn.
It’s (it has) got very cold.
NOTE: Be very careful not to confuse the possessive “its” (no apostrophe)
with the contractive it’s (with apostrophe). You do not want to set off a
“simple Pavlovian ‘kill’ response in the average stickler.” 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.”

5. The apostrophe indicates strange, non-standard English. This is often

used in British English to signal that the speaker is using a regional dialect,
such as cockney English.

6. The apostrophe features in Irish names such as O’Neill and O’Casey.

By the way, “possessive determiners” and “possessive pronouns” do not

require an apostrophe.

Possessive determiners Possessive pronouns

my our mine ours
your your yours yours
his their his theirs
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her their hers theirs

its their its theirs

Additional rules of the apostrophe for the ardent stickler who desires to venture
into “murky tunnels of style, usage and (oh no!) acceptable exception”:

1. Current guides to punctuation (including that ultimate authority, Fowler’s

Modern English Usage) state that with modern names ending in “s”
(including biblical names and any foreign name with an unpronounced final
“s”), the “s” is required after the apostrophe:
Keats’s poems
Philippa Jones’s book
1a. With names from the ancient world, the “s” is not required after the
apostrophe:
Achilles’ heel
1b. And an exception is always made for Jesus:
Jesus’ disciples
2. The double possessive:
Elton John, a friend of the footballer’s, said last night …
NOTE: The only time you drop the double possessive is when, instead of
being involved with an animate being, you are “a lover of the British
Museum,” because obviously the British Museum does not — and never
can — love you back.

Finally, a few more rules of the apostrophe, which may seem simple, but when
broken bring grief to true sticklers everywhere:

1. If you can replace the word with “who is” or “who has,” then the word is
who’s:
Who’s knocking at my door?
2. If you can replace the word with “they are,” then the word is they’re:
They’re not going to get away with this.
3. If you can replace the word with “there is,” the word is there’s:
There’s a surprising amount about the apostrophe in this book.
4. If you can replace the word with “you are,” then the word is you’re:
You’re never going to forget the difference between “its” and “it’s.”

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler

1) Identify the type of apostrophe misuse in each example below and correct the
error.
For example, “Trouser’s reduced” is a case of a singular possessive used instead
of a simple plural. It should read “Trousers reduced.”
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a) Pupil’s entrance (on a very selective school, presumably)

b) Lands’ End
c) Mens Toilets
d) Violet’s ready (Is she?)
e) Angels in box
f) It need’nt be a pane (on a van advertising discount glass)
g) Dear Mr. Steven’s
h) Hot Dogs a Meal in its’ Self (sign in Great Yarmouth)
i) Antique,s; Apple,s

2) If you are too peaceful to take up arms in the name of the apostrophe war
and/or feel uncomfortable at the thought of carrying correction fluid, big pens,
stickers, guerilla clothing or a gun, I suggest the following exercise:

Imagine you’re the shopkeeper in Bristol who deliberately stuck ungrammatical

signs in his window as a ruse to draw people into the shop. Come up with five of
your own particularly humorous or egregious ungrammatical signs that misuse
the apostrophe, then rewrite the sign using the apostrophe correctly.

That’ll do, Comma (pages 68-102)

More than any mark, the comma draws our attention to the mixed origins of
modern punctuation, and the comma has two distinct functions:

1. To illuminate the grammar of a sentence.

2. To point up—rather in the manner of musical notation—such literary

qualities as rhythm, direction, pitch, tone and flow.

Punctuation developed slowly and cautiously not because it wasn’t considered

important, but, on the contrary, it was such an intensely important ju-ju. Pause in
the wrong place and the sense of a religious text can alter in significant ways.
Compare the following:
“Verily, I say unto thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”
“Verily I say unto thee this day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”
If you do not already picture yourself resorting to threats over the “correct way to
punctuate using commas,” by the time you have read the following rules on
commas, we sincerely hope you will.

The comma, the “sheepdog” of punctuation, performs the following functions:

1. Separating items in a list:

Commas divide items in a list but are not required before the and on the end. The
comma is correct if it can be replaced by the word and or or.
The flag is red, white and blue.
1a. However, some people favor the Oxford (or Harvard) comma. These
people place a comma before the and.
The flag is red, white, and blue.
NOTE: In America, standard usage is to leave the comma in.
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1b. In a list of adjectives, again, the rule is that you use a comma where an
and would be appropriate — where the modifying words are all modifying the
same thing to the same degree.
It was a dark, stormy night.
It was a dark and stormy night.
But you do not use a comma for the following. Here, the adjectives are not
intended as a list.
It was an endangered white rhino.
The Grand Old Duke of York had ten thousand men.

2. Joining sentences:
Commas are used 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.
3. Filling gaps
Missing words are implied by a comma.
Annie had dark hair; Sally, fair.
4. Setting off direct speech
The Queen said, “Doesn’t anyone know it’s my birthday?”
5. Setting off interjections
Blimey, what would we do without it?
Stop, or I’ll scream.
6. Commas that come in pairs
“The commas mark the places where the reader can—as it were—place an
elegant two-pronged fork and cleanly lift out a section of the sentence, leaving no
obvious damage to the whole.”
John Keats, who never did any harm to anyone, is often invoked by
grammarians.
To decide whether or not a pair of commas is needed, you need to determine
whether the bit between the commas is “defining,” or restrictive, or not. If the
clause is “defining,” you don’t need to present it with a pair of commas. Thus:
The Highland Terriers that live in our street aren’t cute at all.
If the information in the clause is “non-defining,” however, then you do:
The Highland Terriers, when they are barking, are a nightmare.
When the interruption to the sentence comes at the beginning or at the end, the
grammatical rule of commas-in-pairs still applies, even if you can only see one of
the commas. Thus:
Of course, there weren’t enough tickets to go round.
is, from the grammatical point of view, the same as:
There weren’t, of course, enough tickets to go round.
Common Comma Pitfalls
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Avoid the following:

1. The “yob’s comma.” “The yob’s comma has no syntactical value: it is the
equivalent of a fuddled gasp for breath, as the poor writer marshals his
battered thoughts.”
The society decided not to prosecute the owners of the Windsor Safari
Park,
where animals, have allegedly been fed live to snakes and lions, on legal
advice.
2. Avoid American telegraphese in news headlines, where the comma is
increasingly given the job of replacing the word “and.” Thus:
UK study spurns al-Qaeda, Irak link
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Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler

1) Come up with four sentences of your own using the comma. Make sure the
meaning of each sentence is significantly altered by the placement of the
comma.

2) Punctuate the following paragraph taken from The New Yorker.

Not long ago in Paris I met a young Muslim woman named Djamila
Benrehab who at the age of twenty had donned not only a black head
scarf but a billowy black abaya and under it all a tight black bandanna to
her eyebrows that left only the circle of her face exposed. Djamila is a big
apple cheeked endearing person. She speaks a beautiful lilting French
and is intelligent and quite charming. Her dream is to leave Paris and go
to Brooklyn where she has heard Muslim girls go veiled and nobody minds
and in any case “It can’t be worse than here.”

3) Punctuate the following sentences. (For explanations see page 97)

a) Leonora walked on her head a little higher than usual.
b) The driver managed to escape from the vehicle before it sank and
swam to the riverbank.
c) Don’t guess use a timer or a watch.
d) The convict said the judge is mad.

4) Come up with a sentence to illustrate each rule of the comma given above. Be
sure to include sentences in which the placement of the comma significantly
alters the meaning of the sentence.

5) Come up with three sentences that properly employ commas to offset

restrictive clauses. Include at least one sentence whose meaning would be
changed significantly if commas were not used.

6) Look through your local newspaper and find sentences in which the comma
has been misused. Then write a letter to the editor explaining the correct use of
the comma. Try to remain modest and not brag about your newfound prowess
with punctuation.

Punctuation History Questions for the True Stickler

1) Who printed the first semicolon?
2) Who stated in 1566 that the main object of punctuation is the clarification of
syntax?
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Airs and Graces (pages 103-131)

So far you have been dabbling in the art of punctuation. If you really want to
become a master of your craft, you must learn how to use the semicolon and the
colon.

The Semicolon:
Here is the American essayist Lewis Thomas on the semicolon:
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 is more to
come; read on; it will get clearer.
(The Medusa and the Snail, 1979)

Lynne Truss tells us, “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.” p. 114

If used according to the following rules, semicolons can be, as Lynne Truss
warns, “dangerously habit-forming.”

1. The main place for putting a semicolon is between two related sentences
where there is no conjunction such as “and” or “but,” and where the
comma would be ungrammatical:
I love Opal Fruits; they are now called Starburst, of course.
I remember him when he couldn’t write his own name on a gate;
now he’s Prime Minister.
In each of the examples above, a dash could certainly be substituted for the
semicolon without much damage to the sentence. But it is worth learning the
different effects created by the semicolon and the dash. Whereas the semicolon
suggests a connection between the two halves of each of these sentences, the
dash ought to be preserved for occasions when the connection is a lot less
direct, when it can act as a bridge between bits of fractured sense:
I loved Opal Fruits—why did they call them Starburst?—reminds
me of that joke “What did Zimbabwe used to be called?—Rhodesia.
What did Iceland used to be called?—Bejam!”*
________________________________________________________________
______

* Iceland is the name of a British grocery retailer that purchased a much-larger

rival store chain, Bejam, turning all Bejam outlets into Iceland stores.

2. Occasionally, the semicolon “performs the duties of a kind of Special

Policeman in the event of comma fights.”
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Fares were offered to Corfu, the Greek island, Morocco, Elba, in

the Mediterranean, and Paris. Margaret thought about it. She had
been to Elba once and had found it dull, to Morocco, and found it
too colourful.

There is no option for an upstanding semicolon in such circumstances than to

step in, blow a whistle and restore order.
Fares were offered to Corfu, the Greek island; Morocco; Elba, in
the Mediterranean; and Paris. Margaret thought about it. She had
been to Elba once and had found it dull; to Morocco, and found it
too colourful.
3. Linking words such as “however,” “nevertheless,” “also”,
“consequently” and “hence” require a semicolon.
He woke up in his own bed; nevertheless, he was OK.

The Colon:

According to H.W. Fowler, the colon “delivers the goods that have been invoiced
in the preceding words.” George Bernard Shaw tells us, when two statements are
“placed baldly in dramatic apposition,” use a colon. Thus:
Luruns could not speak: he was drunk.
Shaw explains to Lawrence that when the second statement reaffirms, explains
or illustrates the first, you use a colon; also when you desire an abrupt pull up:
Luruns was congenitally literary: that is, a liar.
Lynne Truss tells us that 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.”
This much is clear, Watson: it was the baying of an enormous hound.
(This much is clear, Watson—yes! it was the baying of an enormous
hound.)
Tom has only one rule in life; never eat anything bigger than your head.
(Tom had only one rule in life—yes! never eat anything bigger than your
head.)
I pulled out all the stops with Kerry-Anne: I used a semicolon.
(I pulled out all the stops with Kerry-Anne—yes! I used a semicolon.)
As well as the “Yes!” type colon, there is the “Ah” type, when the colon reminds
us there is probably more than has met the eye:
I loved Opal Fruits as a child: no one else did.
A classic use of the colon is a kind of fulcrum between two antithetical or
oppositional statements:
Man proposes: God disposes.
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As Shaw put it, the colon can simply pull up the reader for a nice surprise:
I find fault with only three things in this story of yours, Jenkins: the
beginning, the middle and the end.
Some rules of the colon:
1. Colons start lists (especially lists using semicolons):
In later life, Kerry-Anne found there were three qualities she
disliked in other people: Britishness; superior airs; and a feigned
lack of interest in her dusting of freckles.
2. Colons set off book and film subtitles from the main titles:
Berks and Wankers: A Pessimist’s View of Language Preservation
Gandhi II: The Mahatma Strikes Back
3. Conventionally, colons separate dramatic characters from dialogue:
Philip: Kerry-Anne! Hold still! You’ve got some gunk on your face!
Kerry-Anne: They’re freckles, Philip. How many more times?
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Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler

1) Find an old essay written for a class, or better yet, an old love letter and re-
punctuate it, keeping in mind the punctuation rules you have just learned.

2) Write a letter imploring a “non-stickler” to believe in the importance of

punctuation. Be sure to use the apostrophe, the comma, the colon, and the
semicolon.

3) Insert the necessary semicolons and other punctuation in this passage by

Jane Austen using modern punctuation rules. (Austen was very fond of
semicolons.)

Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire was a man who for his
own amusement never took up any book but the Baronetage there he
found occupation for an idle hour and consolation in a distressed one
there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect by
contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents there any
unwelcome sensations arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into
pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the
last century and there if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his
own history with an interest which never failed…
(Persuasion, 1818)

4) Insert the necessary parenthesis, italics, commas and periods in this famous
passage by James Joyce using the punctuation rules you’ve learned:

There was no hope for him this time it was the third stroke. Night after
night I had passed the house it was vacation time and studied the lighted
square of window and night after night I had found it lighted in the same
way faintly and evenly. If he was dead I thought I would see the reflection
of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set
at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me I am not long for this
world and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true…
(Dubliners, 1916)

Punctuation History Questions for the True Stickler

1) How old are the colon and semicolon?
2) Why has the semicolon fallen out of fashion with newspapers?
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Cutting a Dash (pages 132-167)

Follow the guidelines below, and you will soon be able to use effectively, without
overusing, the “expressive, attention seeking punctuation”: the exclamation point,
the dash and the italic. As tempting as it is to follow Gertrude Stein’s lead and
banish this “punctuation that can’t help saying it with knobs on” entirely, Lynne
Truss recommends going the way of Perekladin and Hugo, who were able to
embrace the cathartic nature of such marks and use them to their advantage.

The Exclamation Point

The exclamation point comes at the end of a sentence, is unignorable and
hopelessly heavy-handed, and is known in the newspaper world as a screamer,
a gasper or a startler.
The exclamation point is used:

1. in involuntary ejaculations:
Phew! Lord love a duck!
2. to salute or invoke:
O mistress mine! Where are you roaming?
3. to exclaim (or admire):
How many goodly creatures are there here!
4. for drama:
That’s not the Northern Lights, that’s Manderley!
5. to make a commonplace sentence more emphatic:
I could really do with some Opal Fruits!
6. to deflect potential misunderstanding of irony:
I don’t mean it!
The Question Mark

The question mark, though it takes up twice the space of an exclamation point,
annoys people far less. Its name, though fairly boring, is a good indicator of its
function.

Question marks are used in a direct question:

What is the capital of Belgium?
When the question is inside quotation marks, again it is required:
“Did you try the moules and the chips?” he asked.
When the question is indirect, though, the sentence manages without it:
What was the point of all this sudden interest in Brussels, he
wondered.
I asked if she had something in particular against the Belgian national
character.
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Avoid the increasing trend of (ignorantly) adding question marks to sentences

containing indirect questions. While the reason for it is not hard to identify, says
Lynne Truss, the practice is a bit depressing, and certainly irritating.

Italics

Italics are the print equivalent of underlining, and they are used for:

1. titles of books, newspapers, albums, films

2. emphasis of certain words

3. foreign words and phrases

4. examples when writing about language

Like the exclamation point, italics should be used sparingly for purposes of
emphasis.

Quotation Marks
Use double quotation marks for speech and single quotations for quotations-
within-quotations.

American grammarians insist that, if a sentence ends in inverted commas, all the
terminal punctuation for the sentence must come tidily inside the speech marks,
even when this doesn’t seem to make sense.
Sophia asked Lord Fellamar if he was “out of his senses”. (British)
Sophia asked Lord Fellamar if he was “out of his senses.”
(American)

The Dash, the Double Dash, and Brackets

The Dash
Whereas a dash is generally concerned to connect (or separate) phrases and
sentences, the tiny, tricky hyphen (used in such phrases as “quasi-dashes,”
“double-taps,” and “stream-of-consciousness”) is used quite distinctly to connect
(or separate) double words. A single dash creates a dramatic disjunction that can
be exploited for humor, for bathos, or for shock. Byron is a great master of the
dramatic dash:
A little still she strove, and much repented,
And whispering “I will ne’er consent”—consented.
Double dashes are a bracketing device.

Brackets
Brackets come in various shapes, types and names:

1. round brackets (which the British call brackets, and Americans call
parentheses)

2. square brackets [which the British call square brackets, and Americans
call brackets]
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3. brace brackets {which are shaped thus and derive from mathematics}

4. angle brackets <used in palaeography, linguistics and other technical

specialties>

Parentheses are used to add information, to clarify, to explain, and to illustrate:

Tom Jones (1749) was considered such a lewd book that, when
two earthquakes occurred in London in 1750, Fielding’s book
was blamed for them.
Starburst (formerly known as Opal Fruits) are available in all
corner shops.
Robert Maxwell wasn’t dead yet (he was still suing people.)
Parentheses are perfect for authorial asides of various kinds:
Tom Jones was blamed for some earthquakes (isn’t that
interesting?).
Square brackets are quite another thing. They are 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 far too many examples by this
stage.
Square brackets are most commonly used around the word sic (from the Latin,
sicut,
meaning “just as”), to explain the status of an apparent mistake. Generally, sic
means the foregoing mistake (or apparent mistake) was made by the
writer/speaker I am quoting; I am but the faithful messenger; in fact I never get
anything wrong myself.
She asked for “a packet of Starbust [sic]”
However, there are distinctions within sic: it can signify two different things:

1. This isn’t a mistake, actually; it just looks like one to the casual eye.
I am grateful to Mrs. Bollock [sic]
2. Tee hee, what a dreadful error! But it would be dishonest of me to correct
it.
Please send a copy of The Time’s [sic],” he wrote.
Square brackets also (sometimes) enclose the ellipsis, when words are left out.

The Ellipsis
The ellipsis should be used:

1. To indicate words missing from a quoted passage.

2. To trail off in an intriguing manner. …

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Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler

1) In the following paragraph insert the necessary exclamation points, italics,
ellipses, and parentheses. (Brackets are used where a punctuation mark is
needed.)

Well, maybe you’re right, baby. You can’t come together with nothing, and
you’re nothing[ ] SNAP [ ] It went snap tonight at Daddy’s party [ ] Dripping
contempt, but there is fury and loss under it[ ] I sat there at Daddy’s party
and I watched you[ ] I watched you sitting there, and I watched the
younger men around you, the men who were going to go somewhere.”
(Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1962)

Punctuation History Questions for the True Stickler

1) When was the exclamation point introduced and what was it known as?
2) When was the question mark introduced and what did it look like?

3) What shape of bracket appeared first and what attractive name was it given by
Erasmus?
4) From what language does the word “bracket” derive?
17

A Little Used Punctuation Mark (pages 168-176)

Traditionally the hyphen joins together words, or words-with-prefixes, to aid
understanding; it keeps certain other words neatly apart, for the same reason.

1. Many words require hyphens to prevent ambiguity: words such as “co-

respondent,” “re-formed,” and “re-mark.” A re-formed rock band is quite
different from a reformed one. Likewise, a long-standing friend is different
from a long standing one.

2. It is necessary to use hyphens when spelling out numbers.

I have thirty-two cousins.
3. Use a hyphen when linking nouns with nouns. Typesetters and
publishers use a short dash, known as an en-dash, for this function.
London-Brighton train;
3a. This also applies to linking adjectives with adjectives.
American-French relations.
4. Though it is less rigorously applied than it used to be, there is a rule that
when a noun phrase is used to qualify another noun, it is hyphenated.
The home featured a stainless-steel kitchen.
5. Certain prefixes traditionally require hyphens.
pro-hyphen
quasi-grammatical.
6. When words are to be spelled out, it is customary to use hyphens to
indicate that you want the letters enunciated (or typeset) separately.
“Kensham, that’s K-E-N-S-H-A-M.”
7. Purely for expediency, the hyphen is used to avoid an unpleasant
linguistic condition called “letter collision.” However much you might want
to create compound words, there will always be some ghastly results, such
as “deice” (de-ice) or “shelllike” (shell-like.)

8. One of the main uses of the hyphen is to indicate that a word is

unfinished and continues on the next line.

9. Hesitation and stammering are indicated by hyphens.

“I reached for the w-w-w-watering can.”
10. When a hyphenated phrase is coming up, and you are qualifying it
beforehand, it is necessary to also hyphenate the modifying word or
phrase.
“He was a two- or three-year-old.”

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler

18

1) Insert the necessary hyphens.

Arulpagrasam’s British manager duct taped a banner reproducing M.I.A.’s

spray painted, circular orange and green logo to the turntables, which
were suspended from the ceiling by chains.
(The New Yorker, 2004)

2) Now that you are an expert at using the hyphen, write a passage in which you
employ the hyphen in each of the ten ways described above.
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Answer Key:
Question 1 (page 5)
a) singular possessive instead of plural possessive
b) Plural possessive instead of singular possessive
c) No possessive where possessive is required
d) Dangling expectations caused by incorrect pluralisation
e) Unintentional sense from unmarked possessive
f) Someone knows an apostrophe is required … but where, oh where?
g) Misplaced possessive in a proper name
h) Itself – no possessive required (But a colon after “Hot Dogs” would be nice.)
i) Commas instead of apostrophes – and neither are required because the words
are not possessive

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler (Page 8)

Question 2 (page 8)

Not long ago in Paris, I met a young Muslim woman named Djamila
Benrehab who, at the age of twenty, had donned not only a black head
scarf, but a billowy black abaya and, under it all, a tight black bandanna to
her eyebrows that left only the circle of her face exposed. Djamila is a big,
apple cheeked, endearing person. She speaks a beautiful, lilting French
and is intelligent and quite charming. Her dream is to leave Paris and go
to Brooklyn, where she has heard Muslim girls go veiled and nobody
minds and, in any case, “It can’t be worse than here.”

Question 3 (page 8)

3) Punctuate the following sentences. (For explanations see page 97)

a) Leonora walked on, her head a little higher than usual.
b) The driver managed to escape from the vehicle before it sank, and
swam to the riverbank.
c) Don’t guess; use a timer or a watch.
d) “The convict,” said the judge, “is mad.”

Punctuation History Questions for the True Stickler (Pages 8-9)

1) Who printed the first semicolon? Aldus Manutius

2) Who stated in 1566 that the main object of punctuation is the clarification
of syntax? Aldus Manutius the Younger

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler

Question 3 (Page 12)

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Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his
own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage. There, he
found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one;
there, his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by
contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there, any
unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally
into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of
the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could
read his own history with an interest which never failed…
(Persuasion, 1818)

Question 4 (Page 13)

There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after
night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted
square of window; and night after night I had found it lighted in the same
way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the
reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles
must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me, “I am not
long for this world,” and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they
were true…
(Dubliners, 1916)

Punctuation History Questions for the True Stickler

1) How old are the colon and semicolon? The first printed semicolon was
used in 1494 by Alfred Manutius, although medieval scribes used similar
symbols in their works as well. Both the colon and the semicolon had been
adopted into English well before 1700.
2) Why has the semicolon fallen out of fashion with newspapers?
The most common reasons are:
1) They are old-fashioned.
2) They are middle-class.
3) They are optional.
4) They are mysteriously connected to pausing.
5) They are dangerously addictive.
6) The difference between the colon and the semicolon is too
negligible to be grasped by the brain of man.

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler (Page 16)

Question 1 (Page 16)

Well, maybe you’re right, baby. You can’t come together with nothing, and
you’re nothing! SNAP! It went snap tonight at Daddy’s party. (Dripping
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contempt, but there is fury and loss under it) I sat there at Daddy’s party
and I watched you…I watched you sitting there, and I watched the
younger men around you, the men who were going to go somewhere.”
(Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1962)

Punctuation History Questions for the True Stickler (Page 16)

1) When was the exclamation point introduced and what was it known as?
The exclamation point was introduced by humanist printers in the 15th
century and was known as “the note of admiration” until the mid 17th
century.
2) When was the question mark introduced and what did it look like? The
question mark began to appear in the second half of the 8th century, when
it resembled a lightning flash, striking from right to left.
3) What shape of bracket appeared first and what attractive name was it
given by Erasmus? The angle shape was the earliest to appear, but in the
16th century Erasmus gave the attractive name “lunulae” to round
brackets, in reference to their moon-like profile.
4) From what language does the word “bracket” derive? The word “bracket”
comes from the same German root as “brace” or “breeches,” and originally
referred to the kind of bracket that holds up a bookshelf.

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler

Question 1 (Page 18)

Arulpagrasam’s British manager duct taped a banner – reproducing

M.I.A.’s spray painted, circular orange and green logo – to the turntables,
which were suspended from the ceiling by chains.
(The New Yorker, 2004)
22

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