Lynn Truss, the now wealthy author of this improbable bestseller, describes her rallying cry as "Sticklers unite!" The sticklers, herself included, suffer something like physical pain when they see a misplaced comma. She is probably blissfully unaware that a large number of law firm partners fall into this category. Truss describes the activities of the Apostrophe Protection Society (yes, there is such a thing) as too mild-mannered for her taste; the society members write letters, like Amnesty International, to abusers. She wanted to take more direct action, so she wrote a book.
So far, this tale calls to mind a number of other eccentric, and inevitably futile, campaigns to save the language by "harmless drudges," to borrow Samuel Johnson's phrase. What separates this book from the others is that for a stickler, Truss can write. She writes droll, lucid prose that entertains as much as it instructs. By the standards of its genre - style guides and usage guides and the like - this book is almost voluptuous. It is jam-packed with amusing stories, such as Milan Kundera's firing of a publisher for insisting on replacing one of his semicolons with a period. Like Mary Poppins, the author seems to feel that with a spoon full of sugar, the medicine will go down. She may well be right.
If the book's sales are any guide, the answer is yes. Punctilious punctuationists are not the endangered species they were feared to be, writing correctly punctuated sentences to one another like Illuminati trading secret handshakes. While not everyone cares, many people evidently do.
This reviewer comes not to bury Ms. Truss, but to praise her. She has embarked on a thankless task with brio, and she deserves ever penny she has earned for it. Her achievement is of particular relevance to lawyers. Punctuation mistakes made by attorneys are legion. As someone who is constantly exposed to these errors on resumes and cover letters, which presumably are given more than a once-over by their authors, I am convinced that this book should be handed out on the very first day of law school. Witnessing a punctuation debacle is like watching someone walk into a legal interview naked, sporting unbecoming tufts of hair and a variety of tattoos, and thinking - there goes nothing. Literally.
Much of the blame undoubtedly lies with Microsoft's Word® program, which has become, for many, the last best hope for catching errors. If practicing law is like being a trapeze artist without a safety harness, relying on Microsoft is like packing your parachute bag with dirty laundry. One of the most dangerous ways to remedy a deficiency in one's grasp of punctuation is to rely on this program. Its frivolity is matched only by its incompetence. True, it can pick up the odd surplus period. But it gives you a false sense of security. Moreover, as with any overused crutch, your own punctuation muscles begin to atrophy and eventually you soon become helpless without it (which is no doubt the company's intention).
There's a deeper meaning in all of this than just getting it right and, in so doing, pleasing your partner, your client, or the judge. If a pedant cares too deeply about mistakes, and takes grim joy in noticing them and pointing them out, the reckless user of English cares not a whit about his own words and the power that they have when chosen with care and punctuated properly. To become an initiate in this arcane world is to have the scales fall from one's eyes and to see the most delicate meaning where others see only marks on a page. At school, punctuation errors trigger red marks from the teacher: something to be avoided, but not something to become excited about. We are not taught the emotional calculus behind punctuation, or its rich history. I must confess that someone offered me this book as a Christmas present, and I turned it down flat, not realizing that question marks were things I wanted to learn more about. After all, life is short, and there is always more TV to watch. My ignorance, and worse, apathy, about the history of the semi-colon, and the great Aldus Manutius the Elder, were almost perfect. No longer.
