Proper punctuation, please!
Heard on NPR yesterday:
Lynne Truss, writer, journalist and advocate of proper punctuation, has come to rescue us from the misplaced comma. In her book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Truss shows how an improper punctuation mark can make all the difference. Unearthing examples of bizarre and careless errors through the ages, this narrative history also shares witty teasers and ambiguous phrases, all entirely dependent on the punctuation.
I couldn’t catch her whole interview, but, this example about missing apostrophes was quite funny. She mentioned that people are losing proper writing skills due to overusage of emails. Here is what happens if you drop an apostrophe:
Those old things over there are my husband(')s.