Six Degrees of Separation: Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

Thanks as always to Books Are My Favorite and Best for  hosting Six Degrees of Separation each month! You can read the rules here.

This month we are starting our chains with Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. I have not read this book, so here is the Amazon blurb:

In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Lynne Truss, gravely concerned about our current grammatical state, boldly defends proper punctuation. She proclaims, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. Using examples from literature, history, neighborhood signage, and her own imagination, Truss shows how meaning is shaped by commas and apostrophes, and the hilarious consequences of punctuation gone awry.

My Chain

My brain was taxed by too many emails, too many committee meetings on Zoom and the like so I’ve gone the obvious route this month.

My Chain

The first book that came to mind explains much about why punctuation and even real prose has taken a huge hit–texting. This is a very fun book, by the way. Texts From Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortbeg.

A sweet, but not cloying or precious, book that uses texting and other disasterous forms of communication in substandard English is Akin by Emma Donoghue. Yes the premise is a bit crazy, but just go with it. Pictures, emojis, abbreviations–all of texting and social media posting works in this book. Akin: A Novel by Emma Donoghue.

Another book that came to mind also addresses why we cannot use standard English, its grammar or its punctuation anymore: We are overwhelmed by e-mail and the subsequent “active hive mind” approach to our work day. This one is well worth reading. A World Without Email by Cal Newport.

A book that uses a lot of email in the story is the funny Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea.

Another force trying to destroy the English language is the Academe. This book is so funny (if you work in academia, that is) I had to be sure I didn’t take a drink while listening to it. Whether it is debating the most inclusive language [which I am in no way against–I’m merely against ever attending another meeting on that subject and most other subjects ever again], or whether whatever in vogue cannon is x-enough, or if x-group has “agency” –it is all in the book, all the daily absurdities of academia’s endless committee meetings. Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher.

 

I tossed a coin whether the use of “AF” or “AS” or F— or BadAss would win. The constant use of profanity is another thing our society needs to back away from. Yes, I’m old. Yes, I used to think it was ‘just a word’ (or phrase). I’ve lived a while. I’ve seen the coarsening effects. It’s up there with men’s genitalia being displayed in boxers or briefs above the waistband of their pants and facial tatoos. (Yes, I am, as a matter of fact, judging.) I picked this book because it epitomizes the problem. This books, is of course, to be taken as humor (and I get the humor–I was a Mom of a kid who barely slept). But it’s too much.  Go the F@@k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach.

Next month, August, we start our chains with Postcards From the Edge by Carrie Fisher.

Did you participate in Six Degrees this month? Leave me a link to your post in the comments.

Does this look like fun to you? It is! Join in next month! Here are the rules.