Do you
remember some of the Schoolhouse Rock songs, like "A Noun is a Person, Place, or Thing" or "Interjection!" or "Conjunction, Junction, What's Your Function?"? [Click on one of the song titles for a quick trip down Memory Lane.]
If you have fond memories of Schoolhouse Rock, then you will probably enjoy Lynne Truss' book called "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation." It was a #1 New York Times Bestseller, which I find absolutely amazing because (1) it's 
a book about punctuation and (2) it's targeted for our neighbors across the pond (UK).
This book is highly entertaining, and at the same time, very educational. The author is basically sick and tired of her country's lazy and lackadaisical attitude towards punctuation (of which much applies to the US), and she is calling for punctuation "sticklers" to unite and stop the downward spiral into the Eternal Abyss of Illiteracy.
The title of the book is quite clever. The back cover tells the story:
"A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
'Why?' asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
'I'm a panda,' he says at the door. 'Look it up.'
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'
So, punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death."
I would highly recommend this book. It's a quick read, it's relevant, it's funny, and it's necessary. I guarantee that you will look at your periods (full stops), colons, semicolons, commas, dashes and apostrophes in a whole new light.
I was required to read this book for my seminary course. Now that's what I call tres kewl!
Has anyone else read it?
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