Do You?
Missed Connections from Boston
Do you
disguise yourself
(part of your real self)
in posts written with intentional bad spelling and grammar?
to fly under the coop,
to let it out without letting it all hang out?
curious.
Her Two Cents
During one of my longer car travels I listened to the audio version of “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” by Lynne Truss. The proper English accent of this former BBC host only helps to reinforce the stereotype that Brits know their punctuation, their grammar, their spelling. Americans, on the other hand, even the better educated of them, are woefully misinformed, lazy, and virtually impossible to understand, let alone read. The program (or shall I say programme?) does an exhaustive job of highlighting punctuation errors found in your average London market, “Melon’s!” “Banana’s!” and talks with members of a punctuation policing group that roams the city streets informing business owners of their transgressions. I borrowed this audio-book from the local library with the hope it might provide a refresher course and solutions for common punctuation mistakes (Yes, I’m a “dash” user and abuser. I also have a strange attraction to exclamation points. Help is clearly needed.) Writing is generally an enjoyable diversion for me but as I attended elementary school during a time when more emphasis was placed on creativity than “rules” I’ve always felt somewhat lacking in the skills department. Unfortunately, listening to precocious (sorry, just average) British school children with darling lilting accents describing the proper uses of the comma sent me into a bit of an auditory fog. They sound so lovely – but what did they say?!
