Punctuation

You should, if you haven’t already, read Lynne Truss’s book Eats, Shoots & Leaves; The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. I’m not sure how she liked it that the publisher used an ampersand instead of good old reliable word “and.”

I read it cover-to-cover sitting my broker’s Sunday afternoon open house to which no one came back when I was a real estate agent in Philadelphia. It was a lovely house on South Street, and I enjoyed being in it for the few hours I was needed. It was fairly pricey on South Street, an area which suffered a somewhat sketchy reputation no longer applicable. It was a few blocks from my home, and I liked the street a lot. The book is a fast read, very entertaining and funny, and true, and short, so I was able to polish it off in short order and gained a log of insights from it, as well as some good jokes, so it stuck with me.

I am not a zero-tolerance guy when it comes to punctuation in dialogue. That’s most of what I write. Punctuation shows how people talk. A line, “I told you that --.” Works very nicely by telling the actors how to read it. but would never get a Pulitzer.

I was happy no one came, though I didn’t tell my broker that.