How punctuation became sexy

Apostrophes, semicolons and hyphens are hardly the ingredients of a gripping read. But author Lynne Truss appears to have done the unfathomable and made punctuation sexy.

A misplaced comma, she reveals, can be a matter of life and death; without proper punctuation we would not be able to communicate.

Take the title itself, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which comes from a joke about a panda that walks into a bar.

Asking for a sandwich, he eats it, then takes out a revolver and fires it into the air.

When the bemused barman asks him why, the bear hands him a badly-punctuated wildlife manual, telling him to look up pandas.

Under the relevant entry he reads: 'Panda. Large, black and white, bear-like mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'

Spike Milligan showed that the addition of a seemingly innocuous comma could change a romantic song lyric into a commonplace domestic inquiry: "What is this thing called, love?"

Meanwhile, Roger Casement, charged under the 1351 Treason Act, nearly escaped the death sentence when his counsel contended that because the Act was unpunctuated the meaning was unclear. But two judges managed to find a faint comma in a text in the public records office and he was duly hanged.

This book, which came out last month, has been flying off bookshelves. Last week it topped the Amazon best-seller list.

The unprecedented demand for a grammar book even caught out Lynne's publishers, Profile Books. The initial print run of 15,000 sold out within days and in its first three weeks was reprinted seven times.

So what has led more than 100,000 people to make a mad dash for dashes?

Lynne explains: "I didn't expect this to happen at all. I wrote the book for poor old codgers like me - people who twitch when they see an apostrophe in the wrong place.

"But many of those buying it are clever people, some of whom may even have English literature degrees, but who still don't know where to put an apostrophe. They feel let down. This book offers them a chance to rectify it."

Lynne, who has lived in Brighton, for ten years, began her war against bad grammar as a sub-editor for The Times, meticulously checking other people's writing for punctuation gaffes.

Her lowest moment, which prompted her to action, was seeing a banner at the Tesco Metro at a petrol station in Dyke Road near her home. It read: "Come inside for CD's, video's, DVD'S and book's."

This "satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes" made her gasp with horror and revealed her "inner stickler".

She said: "It was so shocking but I didn't get up the nerve to go in. Anyway, what point was there asking someone on the till. They wouldn't know who made it.

"I felt so hopeless. I would drive another way out of town to avoid that blinking petrol station."

Another Brighton sign that niggled her is displayed in the window of Oxfam in Western Road.

"We urgently need records, CD's and videos please," it requests.

Again she found herself horrified by the error.

"Sticklers", she explains, "are people who feel helpless and outraged to see mistakes in public places; who point out spelling errors in menus to the embarrassment of their families; or who stand stock still in front of a poster for 'Two weeks notice' (which ought rightly to have an apostrophe after 'weeks') while the rest of the world travels past, impervious."

Interspersed between the correct way to use hyphens, commas and full stops are humorous anecdotes, asides and stories.

Miss Truss has also meticulously researched the history of punctuation.

Embarking on her book was a way of dealing with her inner stickler.

She said: "The main impetus was that I wanted to write about that feeling that the isolated nerd has.

"I got a bit of it out of my system. I wanted to understand a little bit more about what's happening and about the apparent general indifference to punctuation."

The Argus does not escape censure within the pages of the book.

She said: "I'd be thinking about the whole history of punctuation, then I'd want to illustrate it. The Argus came in handy now and again when I was looking for examples."

She quotes a billboard for The Argus announcing: "Fan's fury at stadium inquiry".

This, she said, sounded rather interesting until she opened the paper and found it was a large group of fans rather than the single, hopping-mad fan indicated by the punctuation.

Although tempted to form a militant wing of the Apostrophe Protection Society (armed with black markers pens, tins of paint and guerrilla-style clothing) she has yet to embark on a campaign of corrections.

She said: "I've always worried I'd get arrested if I went round changing things. I'm too cowardly to risk being caught."

However, she has plans for the future to help other sticklers get their own back - stickers of different punctuation marks to go with the book for people to stick on signs and posters to correct them.

She said: "Punctuation matters because you can't be clear without it."

Have you noticed any grammatical blunders on your travels? Write to: Grammatical Gaffes, The Argus, Argus House, Crowhurst Road, Hollingbury, Brighton, BN1 8AR.