Comma Sense: A Fundamental Guide To Punctuation

Lederer has long been one of America's most popular experts on language and grammar, but here he seems to be taking his cue from Lynn Truss in focusing on the ins and outs of commas, semi-colons and the other little dots and dashes that punctuate our writing. Lederer, with writer and editor Shore, tries a bit too hard to convince readers of the importance of good punctuation ("Good punctuation makes for a good life") and to make the whole business amusing (the period is "a mark so dinky that farsighted fleas court it"); disquisitions on Seabiscuit and Albert Einstein's hair are distractions rather than entertainments. And all the talk of how the apostrophe is like Jesse James explains less than Lederer's straightforward usage examples, such as the serious differences in meaning between these two sentences: "The butler stood in the doorway and called the guests names"; "The butler stood in the doorway and called the guests' names." Yes, punctuation is important, and the bold-face print for basic rules does make this an easy-to-use guide for the punctuationally perplexed. Lederer is a prolific author of language books, most notably the Anguished English series. Here, along with professional journalist Shore, he offers brief chapters on 13 punctuation marks. This primer will be useful to anyone needing a refresher course on the basics of punctuation. Aware that most people find grammatical advice to be rather dry and sometimes intimidating subject matter, Lederer employs a jocular tone intended to disarm wary readers. Thus, the dash ("fluid and graceful") is introduced by way of Fred Astaire; Shirley Temple acts as a stand-in for the hyphen ("perky, yet resolute"); and Jesse James gets the apostrophe ("a tad flamboyant"). To keep things from getting altogether too cute, Lederer explains the finer points of the exclamation point by quoting wacky dialogue from the I Love Lucy show. Concise instruction from a fun-loving grammarian.