Truss 2

A comma, a small, crooked point.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChelseaOliver/2008/03/el150_a_comma_a_small_crooked.html

Second grade pen-pals
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChelseaOliver/2008/03/el150_second_grade_penpals.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/TiffanyGilbert/2008/03/comma_comma_comma_comma_swoop.html

Comma Comma Comma Comma Swoop Comma Comma Comma Comma

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/TiffanyGilbert/2008/03/semicomprehendable.html

"Th first printed semicolon was the work of good old Aldus Manutius just two years after Columbus sailed to the New World....."
"The colon and semicolon had been adopted into English well before 1700, confusion has surrounded their use ever since."

So...here's a two for one special; no the eggs are not going to take over the market, Bobo!
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MadelynGillespie/2008/03/oxford_wonderings_while_colon.html

"Of course, if Hebrew or any of the other ancient languages had included punctuation[...]" (Truss 75).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EthanShepley/2008/03/ancient_languages.html

"[...] colons introduce the part of a sentence that ememplifies, restates, elaborates, undermines, explains or balances the preceding part" (Truss 120).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EthanShepley/2008/03/colons_the_reckoning.html

“More than any mark, the comma draws our attention to the mixed origins of modern punctuation.” (Truss, Eats, Shoots, & Leaves p70)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AngelicaGuzzo/2008/03/the_comma_2.html

“Colons introduce the part of a sentence that exemplifies, restates, elaborates, undermines, explains or balances the preceding part.” (Truss Eats, Shoots, and Leaves p120)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AngelicaGuzzo/2008/03/confusion_with_the_semicolon.html

Just read this! No explanation needed.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AngelaPalumbo/2008/03/limited_time_offer_bogo_blogs.html

“Well, start waving and yelling, because it is the so-called Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) and it is a lot more dangerous than its exclusive, ivory-tower moniker might suggest. There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and people who don’t…Here in case you don’t know what it is yet, is the perennial example, as espoused by Harold Ross: ‘The flag is red, white, and blue.’ So what do you think of it? (It’s the comma after ‘white’)” (Truss 84).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/GretaCarroll/2008/04/oxford_is_the_oldest_englishsp.html

"Most significantly of all, however, the ignored the old marks that had aided the reader-aloud. Books were now for reading and understanding, not intoning."

-From page 78 of Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EricaGearhart/2008/04/i_think_i_lived_another_life_a.html

"For a millennium and a half, punctuation's purpose was to guide actors, chanters and reader-aloud through stretches of manuscript, indicating the pauses..."(Truss 72).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JulianaCox/2008/04/punctuation.html

"In hindsight I see it was unrealistic to expect a pen-pal from the 8th grade in Detroit to write like Samuel Johnson"(Truss 104).http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JulianaCox/2008/04/samuel_johnson_in_my_cryptoquo.html

I will not admit that I'm starting to like this book...nope, won't do it.

"But sadly, anyone lazily looking for an excuse not to master the colon and semicolon can always locate a respectable reason, because so many are advanced. Here are some of the most common: they are old-fashioned, they are middle-class, they are optional, they are mysteriously connect to pausing, they are dangerously addictive, the difference between them is too negligible to be grasped by the brain of man (Trus 109-110)."

check me out:
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/StephanieWytovich/2008/04/i_will_not_admit_that_i_am_sta.html

Thurber was once asked by a correspondent: "Why did you have a commin in the sentence, 'After dinner, the men went into the living-room'?" And his answer was probably one of the loveliest thigns ever said about punctuation. "This particular comma," Thurber explained, "was Ross's way of giving the ment time to push back their chairs and stand up (Truss 70)." (insert chuckle here)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/StephanieWytovich/2008/04/so_im_comma_happywhatcha_goin.html

"No wonder feelings run high about the comma. When it comes to improving the clarity of a sentence, you can nearly always argue that one should go in; you can nearly always argue that one should come out." (Truss 80)

"Naturally, therefore, this is where the colon and semicolon waltz in together, to a big cheer from writers in the audience." (Truss 105)

" 'The use of commas cannot be learned by rule.' Such was the opinion of the great Sir Ernest Gowers; and I have to say I find that a comfort, coming from the grand old by himself. However, rules certainly exist for the comma" (Truss 82).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AllisonHall/2008/04/practice_makes_perfect_right.html

"The main reason people use [the semicolon], however, is that they know you can't use it wrongly -- which, for a punctuation mark, is an uncommon virtue" (Truss 122).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AllisonHall/2008/04/attack_of_the_killer_semicolon.html

"As we shall see, the tractable apostrophe has always done its proper jobs in our language with enthusiasm and elegance, but it has never been taken seriously enough" (36).

I think Truss is being too general when she says that the apostrophe has "never" been taken seriously. I feel like she's coming off like she's so smart about grammar and everybody else is just dumb about it.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/KayleyDardano/2008/04/oh_no_comma_watch_out.html

More than any other mark, the comma draws our attention to the mixed origins of modern punctuation, and its consequent mingling of two quite distinct functions: To illuminate the grammar of a sentence 2 To point up-… literary qualities as rhythm, direction, pitch, tone and flow (70)

"'Why do you have a comma in the sentence, 'After dinner, the men went into the living-room'...'This particular comma... was Ross's way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up.'" (Truss 70)
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/KaitlinMonier/2008/04/commas_add_style.html

"They [commas] divide items in lists, but are not required before the and on the end" (Truss 83).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/KaitlinMonier/2008/04/no_comma_before_the_and_not_fo.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/KayleyDardano/2008/04/history_punctuation_and_the_bi.html
Who would have thought the pause had such a long and significant history?... (Paragraphs weren’t indented until much later) (73 Eats, Shoot and leaves)

"Commas, if you don't whistle at them to calm down, are unstoppably enthusiastic at this job" (Truss 79).

Read, my, blog, entry:
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/LaurenMiller/2008/04/comma_comma_comma_comma_comma.html

"I have been told that the dying words of one famous 20th-century writer were, 'I should have used fewer semicolons"--and although I have spent months fruitlessly trying to track down the chap responsible, I believe it none the less" (Truss 127).

Too many semicolons?
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/LaurenMiller/2008/04/i_have_been_told_that.html

“Of course, nothing is straightforward in the world of literary taste. Just as there are writers who worship the semicolon, there are other high stylists who dismiss it—who label it, if you please, middle-class” (Truss 107).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/GretaCarroll/2008/04/zero_tolerance.html

"But the thermals that benignly waft our sentences to new altitudes - that allow us to coast on air, and loop-the-loop, suspending the laws of gravity- well, they are the colons and semicolons. If you don't believe me, ask Virginia Woolf:

'As for the other experiences, the solitary ones, which people go through alone, in their bedrooms, in their offices, walking the fields and the streets of London, he had them; had left home, a mere boy, because of his mother; she lied; because he came down to tea for the fiftieth time with his hands unwashed; because he could see no future for a poet in Stroud; and so, making a confidant of his little sister, had gone to London leaving an absurd not behind him, such as great men have written, and the world has read later when the story of their struggles has become famous.’

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, 1925

Look at that sentence fly. Amazing.”

-From page 106-107 of Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EricaGearhart/2008/04/but_the_thermals_that_benignly.html

"'No dogs please' is an indefensible generalization, since many dogs do please, as a matter of fact; they rather make a point of it."

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JessieFarine/2008/04/dogs_dont_please_me_so_often.html

"In this chapter I want to examine punctuation as an art. Naturally, therefore, this is where the colon and semicolon waltz in together, to a big cheer from all the writers in the audience."

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JessieFarine/2008/04/punct_art.html

I finally read something that made me gasp out in horror! Oh Truss, what are you doing to me!

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/StephanieWytovich/2008/04/i_finally_had_a_gasp_of_horror.html