Death by comma

Actually not, but if author Lynne Truss had her way, those who are careless with their punctuation would be called on it a lot more often. Her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (421.1 T775e2004), has achieved rare status for a book about grammar -- it's a runaway best seller.



It's her clever treatment of the topic that makes this book such a joy. Here's what she has to say about a sign that reads "Come inside for CD's, VIDEO's, DVD's, and BOOK's":
"If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of the pulse, you should probably put down this book at once. By all means congratulate yourself that you are not a pedant or even a stickler; that you are happily equipped to live in a world of plummeting punctuation standards; but just don't bother to go any further."