Cutting a Dash (Eats, Shoots & Leaves) (Radio Collection)

There's one hour and ten minutes of chat about punctuation on this CD. It's a recording of five episodes of the BBC series "Cutting a Dash" that were broadcast between 3 December and 31 December 2002. The programme titles are: 1) The endangered apostrophe; 2) Changing gear, the comma; 3) And another thing - colons and semicolons; 4) Listen to me when I'm writing; 5) Punctuating the Future.

It's quite funny. I thought I was punctilious about punctuation but after listening to these sad fuss-pots, my own tendency to nit-pick seems mild. Lynne Truss begins her duties in the service of the 'punctuation police' outside a petrol station in Brighton. She says she's really upset by the sight of a sign advertising Video's, CD's, DVD's and Book's. All those superfluous apostrophes. Oh dear. How vexing! Then a man (poor, precious soul) tells us that he experiences physical pain when he sees apostrophes being used where they shouldn't or left out where they should. It's heart rending stuff. Most of these people seem to have a sense of humour about their obsession though. It was very touching to hear the excitement in their voices when Ms Truss and John Richards, founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society, discovered a greengrocer who had a good understanding of the use of apostrophes. Greengrocers are, apparently, extremely and worryingly ignorant about apostrophes, so finding one who wasn't, was a bit like finding a diamond in a slag heap. Comma criminals receive similarly harsh judgements from the punctuation puritans. The title of the book "Eats, Shoots & Leaves", that was inspired by this radio series, is meant to show how the sense of written language all hangs on its punctuation. It's a joke about the description of a panda. In a state of nature, they eat (bamboo) shoots and leaves, but in this joke, a panda goes into a restaurant, eats, shoots and leaves. You see? That extraneous comma made nonsense of a perfectly sensible statement about pandas. Everyone knows pandas have large, ungainly paws and couldn't possibly operate any conventional firearm. So now we understand why these poor, sensitive punctuation nuts take it all so seriously - and suffer physical pain when it ain't done right. They're not so scathing about the use or abuse of colons and semi-colons - regarding them as a more personal thing. That's a relief then.

I enjoyed listening to these harmless fanatics agonising about the indications of disease and noting signs of hope (computer spell-checkers and grammar checkers ) for punctuation. They may be petty and pedantic but the important thing is, they're entertaining. I recommend this audiobook.

Cutting a Dash (Eats, Shoots & Leaves) (Radio Collection)

Lynne Truss

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