Language Today!

I got another belated gift recently (this one was a belated X-mas gift): a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It is that rare combination of tragedy and comedy, a book that makes me choke on my coffee one moment and tear up the next.

It's a book about grammar.

Precisely, it's a look at how people use, or don't use, punctuation properly. I find myself laughing because I encounter crazy grammar every day in my job (example: Our chef's make, the most beautiful cakes to you're liking). When I helpfully correct the mistakes (which is what the clients pay me for, after all), they often try to put the random apostrophes and commas back in. It's as if they were taught there has to be a word to comma ratio of 10 to 4 in every sentence. It's maddening and frustrating.

Alas, this epidemic confusion about how to use commas keeps me employed. So, wait, maybe I shouldn’t encourage every one to read the book…

P.S. Stay tuned for a bona fide tirade on hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes. I have to figure out how to actually format them in html, otherwise I probably won't be able to make my point.