Cutting a Dash
By Lynne Truss
2004
First Published
3.88
Average Rating
300
Number of Pages
The BBC Radio 4 series that inspired the best-selling book Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Lynn Truss accompanies the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society through Berwick Street Market on a hunt for the greengrocer's apostrophe, enters the classroom to hear how children learn punctuation, and finds out whether anyone punctuates text messages. Talking to writers and experts such as Fay Weldon and David Crystal, she discovers the origins of the comma in Greek drama and Gregorian chant, considers the case for semicolonic irrigation and asks how a writer's choice of punctuation expresses his tone of voice. Looking into the future, she wonders if emoticons will put colons, commas and apostrophes on the endangered species list. Impassioned, informative, and always amusing, this is an essential listen for anyone who loves language. The runaway success of Eats, Shoots and Leaves brought millions of grammar geeks out of the closet and made it cool to care about punctuation. This is the radio series that started it all: five programs in which Lynne Truss explores changing fashions in punctuation.
Avg Rating
3.88
Number of Ratings
69
5 STARS
25%
4 STARS
46%
3 STARS
22%
2 STARS
7%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
Lynne Truss
Author · 19 books
Lynne Truss is a writer and journalist who started out as a literary editor with a blue pencil and then got sidetracked. The author of three novels and numerous radio comedy dramas, she spent six years as the television critic of The Times of London, followed by four (rather peculiar) years as a sports columnist for the same newspaper. She won Columnist of the Year for her work for Women's Journal. Lynne Truss also hosted Cutting a Dash, a popular BBC Radio 4 series about punctuation. She now reviews books for the Sunday Times of London and is a familiar voice on BBC Radio 4. She lives in Brighton, England.
