Left by Robert regarding my recent post, Hooked on Books:
Eats Shoots and Leaves ain’t absolutely horrible prescriptivist nonsense like Strunk & White is, but… well, it’s a tad snooty. There are better things to spend your time on, really.
Well…Lynne Truss may be a self-described stickler, but she also has a great sense of humor, and like many Brits she uses it scathingly. And of course, one of the best ways to learn about a subject is to listen to people who are passionate about it. If I only read things that I completely agree with, my world view would be very small indeed.
I liked it, actually.
well, you do have a point there. And she is a hoot. As a reformed English major, I get annoyed when people speak scathingly about orthographic quibbles… it degenerates quite easily into classism or dialectic triumphalism.
But Truss is terribly funny, yes she is.
That was a funny book…what I read of it, anyway. I’m a stickler when it comes to grammar, plus I enjoy the British caveats of English. Amusing.