I never truly believed in the power of punctuation, as much as I do now, this book is exactly what I needed. Lynn Truss spoke volumes to me: For instance, I had no idea how important punctuation is. As per the book it states “Punctuation is “a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling.” I found this to be remarkable because in the few short years I’ve been out of high school I had completely forgot about this aspect of one of my favorite pastimes, reading. Lynn Strauss does bring justice to the traffic jam she calls language. Eaves, Shoots & Leaves is attention grabbing, comical, & filled with informative data on the past and present history on the tractable apostrophe, commas, and colons oh my! These are the three I found most interesting to read.
I had no initiative to think that apostrophe’s were first used in the 16th century so that the actors were able to mark dropped letters. I find it extremely funny that I have fallen victim to the “ i’. “ There have been a myriad of auditions and acting classes where I spoke Shakespearean words incorrectly. Why didn’t any one inform me? As an actor I feel that knowing the rhythm of a body of text is vital in determining how to approach pronunciation of words within the literature. I knew I would learn to love this book due to the fact that Strauss and I have a shared hatred for the movie title Two Weeks Notice because Warner Bros. thought it would be best to leave it without the proper apostrophe. I had made such a mammoth of the situation; my friends were easily distracted from my unremitting banter regarding the apostrophe. As I’ve stated earlier this book is right up my alley, I quickly forgot how many different ways an apostrophe can be used.
I’ve never encountered any school lessons regarding possessive determiners & possessive nouns. It surprises me to learn that these words do not require apostrophes. I have also fallen guilty, as I can recall doing just that over the...