Talk:Eats, Shoots & Leaves

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[edit] Article title

Shouldn't this redirect to the more complete Eats, Shoots and Leaves article? The book's title actually does have the "&," though. --Waiting4beckett 16:05, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I searched for this phrase expecting a short history / analysis of the joke, perhaps also a list of all its variations. I might also have expected it to include links to book titles it has inspired! It doesn't seem right to me that the article should be about a book that post-dates the joke by (in my experience) 30 years. Shouldn't the article about the book includes its subtitle "A zero..."? SeanCollins (talk) 16:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
With Wikipedia article titles, shorter names are preferred. Until there is enough information to create an article about this joke, then this book is the article that will occupy this article-title. — Val42 (talk) 03:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Review Link

The New Yorker review is no longer available online. Remove link?John2429 20:35, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Why is the reference list on this article protected? The review is still available at http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/28/040628crbo_books1 but it seems I am unable to put it back in. --Roddie Digital 10:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
This has been added. --195.137.68.138 22:01, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar and Syntax

I was amazed to find a plethora of grammatical errors in Eats, Shoots & Leaves. And I do not like ampersands in prose! LoopZilla 17:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I found some mistakes too, although I didn't have a notepad to hand when reading it. I think they should be included. I might re-read it and include them. Damiancorrigan 23:58, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

The tag-line on the book's cover is missing a hyphen: it should be The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. To refer to a "Tolerance Approach" doesn't make sense, nor does a "Zero Approach"! 62.56.104.146 19:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ampersands

The ampersand (&) is an often over-used abbreviation for the word and. Its use should be limited to a few situations.

This is the first sentence of All about ampersands. The article then asserts:

Do not use an ampersand in general writing simply to abbreviate the word and.

LoopZilla 08:47, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I believe that ampersands in titling are acceptable. Dweller 11:15, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
And much more to the point it's how the title of the book is spelled. Flapdragon 02:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't say it's necessarily "how the title of the book is spelled" because, typically, decisions concerning abbreviations, casing, &c are made by the designer or editor, not the author. -- Ampersands are used in titling and headlines in order to save space, & because the book designer may want the added calligraphic flourish. Depending on different bibliographical conventions, book citations may preserve the ampersand or spell it out as "and". -- I can't see why anyone should get fussed about ampersands (outside of contexts where they're obligatory, like the names of law firms), but then I can't see why people get fussed about any other abbreviation or mark of punctuation either. --ND 03:26, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The joke

The "eats shoots and leaves" joke with which I'm familiar is much simpler. The book in question was a dictionary rather than a wildlife manual, and it was not badly punctuated; it was simply misinterpreted. The punctuation problem in that case is that some people leave out commas, and the sentence was interpreted as if a comma had been left out. Since apparently the joke doesn't appear anywhere in "Eats, Shoots & Leaves", shouldn't the simpler form of the joke be in this article? It almost seems as if the joke has been modified to more directly suit the purposes of this book. —Deadcode 17:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I have noticed several articles which include some tangential piece of information which requires the use of 'adult' (as in 'not appropriate for youngsters') language or themes. A recent example is the alternate version of the title joke recently added to this article. Is the benefit of adding such material worth the downside of making an article (and therefore, Wikipedia in general) unsuitable for young users? This is an area of policy with which I am not familiar; I would appreciate the input of admins and more experienced editors. Special-T 15:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not censored --Keolah 00:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it should be noted somewhere that this is an older joke, which the writer adapted to sanitise it. The joke needn't be written out in full, it could just be mentioned that the same punchline is used as a reference to the Panda being a poor lover. It'd be good find a reference for this Alan Davies 23:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
The writer didn't adapt it, though I believe she added the "badly-punctuated" bit. I had heard both versions of the joke long before the book came along. Damiancorrigan 18:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The joke is printed on the back cover of the dustjacket of my copy (UK edition) in almost exactly the form it appears in the article. Mhkay (talk) 20:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Smileys (JFB)

What is the JFB there for?

No idea. I've removed it. Recury 18:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there really a chapter on smileys anyway??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.74.200 (talk • contribs) 13:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. -Toptomcat (talk) 06:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Wombat: Eats, roots and leaves

There is a common joke in Australia about how Australian males are like Wombats. Why? The Wombat eats roots and leaves. The Australian male eats, roots, and leaves. Whereas roots refers to has sexual intercourse (in Australian Slang) in the latter example. May be there is a connection between this analogy (or: example of the importance of punctuation)and the title of the book?

How abouta list of examples where punctuation affects the meaning? Example: Women without her man, is nothing. Or:Women. Without her, man is nothing.--Soylentyellow 22:25, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew

I read in the book that Hebrew did not have punctuation, and that leads to Bible translation problems. Masoretic Hebrew texts did have punctuation, its just that most people don't understand it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.203.174.171 (talk) 23:47, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Frank McCourt's foreword

In my copy (American) of Eats, Shoots, & Leaves, the quote is "If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood." So I will add "Roman" to the article; it seems too important to leave out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Istillcandream (talk • contribs) 04:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Error in the Title

The title of this book really, really bothers me. Why? Because I hate when people don't use a serial comma. I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned. --Cleveland Rock (talk) 16:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Where do you think would be the appropriate place to mention your hatred of people who don't use a serial comma? Surely not in the title of this book. I think she was looking to produce a more general overview of punctuation, rather than a discussion of one person's stylistic passion. But I could be wrong.--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)