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"Is there a hyphen in anal retentive?"
— Author Unknown
Lynne Truss told a British interviewer that she had written this book for "people who love punctuation and don't like to see it mucked about." Well, perhaps this is true. The word love has been so devalued by casual usage that it applies now to chocolate-covered peanuts, sitcoms, and vacuum cleaners without an instant's hesitation. But surely the total number of people worldwide who love punctuation --- whatever love of punctuation means --- must be quite small indeed; most of them, probably, are confined in places where no punctuation is available to them.
Truss's intentions notwithstanding, the people who are most avidly snapping up copies for themselves and for all their punctuation-challenged relatives and friends --- thereby pushing sales to record levels in the punctuation category --- are in fact sticklers, not lovers of punctuation. Truss herself frankly acknowledges that she is a "punctuation stickler," a neurotic whose condition is characterized by a compulsion to correct or point out errors in the punctuation of printed materials and a compulsion to instruct others, chiefly by calling attention to their own mistakes. Happily, sticklers enjoy reading books written by other sticklers, but only those that reinforce what the reader already knows --- or wants others to presume he or she already knows. "Did you find any mistakes, dear?" "Well, some little things, of course, but I'd have to say that in general the old girl knows what she's talking about."
The first sticklers, Truss says, were referees in duels. One might have expected to find the word applied instead to the people who were there to do the sticking. In any event, those referees were punctilious fellows who insisted on rigid adherence to established forms and procedures.
She notes in this connection that punctilious ("attention to formality or etiquette") and punctuation are cognate, coming from the same original root word [pungere, to point or stab], and remarks in this connection that the stylebook of an unidentified British newspaper defines punctuation as "a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling."
"Isn't the analogy with good manners perfect?" she exclaims delightedly. "Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. …[T]he practice of 'pointing' [that is, punctuating] our writing has always been offered in a spirit of helpfulness, to underline meaning and prevent awkward misunderstandings between writer and reader."
Even Americans, who in general exhibit little interest in etymology, may be heard to observe that someone who is punctilious about etiquette is mindful of the "fine points" --- punctilios (not to be confused with peccadillos).
With regard to rules, Truss explains the opposing positions of the descriptive linguists, who record usage and analyze it, and the minority composed of those who prescribe, who advocate "correctness" --- doing it the way they were taught to do it in 1943. "My own position," she says, "is simple: in some matters of punctuation there are simple rights and wrongs; in others, one must apply a good ear to good sense. I want the greatest clarity from punctuation, which means, supremely, that I want apostrophes where they should be, and I will not cease from mental fight nor shall my sword sleep in my hand … until everyone knows the difference between 'its' and 'it's.'"
She wisely exposes readers to a few rules, but makes it clear that a general adherence to the rules --- which apply most strongly in regard to the values of consistency and clarity --- doesn't preclude an occasional carefully weighed exception, a position sanctified earlier by the late Sir Ernest Gowers, one of Britain's pre-eminent language scholars and the author of the classic PLAIN WORDS. It was he who declared that the use of commas cannot be learned by rule, and Truss is of the same mind. Listen to her argument for inserting a comma in a sentence where ordinarily she would not use one:
… [H]ere was a case where the stylistic reasons for its inclusion clearly outweighed the grammatical ones for taking it out. This was a decelerating sentence. The commas were incrementally applying the brakes. To omit the comma after "detour" would have the sentence suddenly coasting at speed again instead of slowing to the final halt. This is impressive and revealing of the serious mind behind all the spoofery and playfulness.
Truss is also a champion of colons and semicolons --- Hooray! --- and an admirer of a meticulous journalist who once telephoned a semicolon from Moscow.
George Orwell, Gertrude Stein and other heavyweights deprecated the semicolon, but they are "pompous sillies," who are just showing off, says Truss. (So there.)
The fluent stylist Lewis Thomas, on the other hand, confessed having become fond of semicolons only in old age. However belated, this turnabout by one so articulate and discerning stands as a tribute both to him and to them.
The colon Americans know and find endlessly useful is the annunciatory colon, which they use almost exclusively to introduce lists. Explaining other ways in which this colon may be used, Truss defines the annunciatory colon as the "delighted, satisfied Yes!" type and another as the "Ah!" type. The former is, of course, self-explanatory; the latter "reminds us that there is probably more to the initial statement than has met the eye." For example:
"This much is clear, Watson: [Yes!] it was the baying of an enormous hound."
"You can do it: [Ah!] and you will do it."
The beauty of this technique is that no matter what the writer cries out --- "Yes!" or "Ah!" or "Ai-eee!" --- the colon is nevertheless correct.
One begins to sense that punctuation is really much less complicated than U.S. teachers led us to believe. Not so simple, perhaps, is the counting system used in simpler times by British children: Anda one, anda two… A pause of one beat required only a comma; two called for a semicolon; three, a colon; and four, a period. The flaw, as educators soon discovered, was that the little blighters counted to the beat of different drummers. The fast ones inevitably produced more colons and periods, while the slower ones wound up with alarming numbers of commas and semicolons, and longer sentences as well. Still, as a guide to the relative length of the pause for each of the four stops, this technique was essentially valid.
For the most part Truss's grousing about misuse of punctuation is pleasant, witty and entertaining, though she does get a bit shirty about an American pen-pal years ago who put little circles over her i's and j's. (Why don't such people hollow out periods, too?) She seems chiefly opposed to ignorance and slovenliness, as evidenced, for example, by the pandemic confusion over its and it's --- the first a possessive (for example, a cat washing its tail), the latter a contraction of it is (It's going to rain today). She doesn't mention lets and let's, as in he lets us leave early and Let's go (a contraction of Let (us) go. Part of the pleasure of reading her book derives from comparing one's own list of most annoying errors to hers (not her's).
--- Reviewed by H.V. Cordry
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