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Get it now! BOGO blog entries. But guess what else!? It's a double coupon day. You are entitled to one free blog entry! It's your lucky day! These two entries are from Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
1) "Done knowingly by an established writer, the comma splice is effective, poetic, dashing...Done ignoranyly by ignorant people,it is awful" (88).
When I read this, it made me a bit perturbed. How is it acceptable to let a grammatically savvy person misuse something they have a master of? How is that at all "dashing?" If you have the knowledge, use it! And could she have not picked another word besides ignorant? I am so excited it's April Fool's Day; Excitement is coursing through my excited veins and I am so excited to pull more pranks on people! Does this sound good? NO! Take note Truss...
2) "In each of the following examples, incidentally, can't you hear a delighted, satisfied "Yes!" where the colon comes?...Tom has only one rule in life: never eat anything bigger than your own head" (118).
Do you hear the yes? I don't! In fact, I hear a "No!" which is an immediate response to Truss's example. The first example I understood: "This much is clear, Watson: it was the baying of an enormous hound." To be completely honest though, the "Yes!" and "Ah" strategies really didn't help me at all. I had a really difficult time trying to understand the colon and semicolon sections.
Even though I do complain about Truss, I want to make sure it is known that I do, in fact, like the book, and I am getting something out of it. Sometimes I just need to vent and bring up questions that I want responses to. Because I feel bad about cutting up on Truss, I'll even add a third quote because I thought that it was a great analogy. When I read this I just thought, "Yes! Now this is good writing!"
3) "On the page, punctuation performs its grammatical function, but in the mind of the reader it does more than that. It tells the reader how to hum the tune" (71).
Imagining the words and punctuation as a song lifts the writing off of the page! What a great image!
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Stephanie Wytovich on Limited time offer! BOGO blogs!: Great entry Angela. I espeica
Great entry Angela. I espeically liked the third quote that you added, and the reasoning behind it, haha.
I complain about Truss a lot too, so I can see where you're coming from on that note. I actually admitting to liking the book in my blog entry :( ah.
Punctuation is a kind of guide for the reader to know how the sentence can be read out loud. Punctuation (or the lack thereof) is especially important in poetry, since most poetry is read aloud. I just wrote an entry about how an author's diction can affect the tone of the text. Great entry, Angela!