{"id":29780,"date":"2016-01-07T21:33:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T04:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=29780"},"modified":"2016-01-07T21:33:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T04:33:52","slug":"three-quotations-about-punctuation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/01\/three-quotations-about-punctuation.html","title":{"rendered":"Three quotations about punctuation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Her bestselling book\u2019s cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a really, really serious editor, and I\u2019m really, really dedicated to proper punctuation. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Because it matters.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I\u2019m not quite the only person who thinks this way. \u00a0Lynne Truss does, as well. \u00a0Here are three quotations from her:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\u201cA panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.<\/span>\n

\u201c\u2018Why?\u2019 asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I\u2019m a panda,\u2019 he says, at the door. \u2018Look it up.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Panda<\/em>. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cTo those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as \u2018Thank God its Friday\u2019 (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive \u2018its\u2019 (no apostrophe) with the contractive \u2018it\u2019s\u2019 (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a Pavlovian \u2018kill\u2019 response in the average stickler.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cWe have a language that is full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and elusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places. Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking. If it goes, the degree of intellectual impoverishment we face is unimaginable.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019m a really, really serious editor, and I\u2019m really, really dedicated to proper punctuation. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Because it matters. \u00a0 Fortunately, I\u2019m not quite the only person who thinks this way. \u00a0Lynne Truss does, as well. \u00a0Here are three quotations from her: \u00a0 \u201cA panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThree quotations about punctuation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I'm a really, really serious editor, and I'm really, really dedicated to proper punctuation. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Because it matters.   Fortunately,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/01\/three-quotations-about-punctuation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three quotations about punctuation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"    I'm a really, really serious editor, and I'm really, really dedicated to proper punctuation. \u00a0Why? 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