I've just spotted a third reason to loathe emoticons, which is that when they pass from fashion (and I do hope they already have), future generations will associate punctuation marks with an outmoded and rather primitive graphic pastime and despise them all the more.
It looks like it's sticking its tongue out! The permutations may be endless: What's this curvy thing for? It's a mouth, look! Hey, I think we're on to something. What's this dot-on-top-of-a-dot thing for? What earthly good is it? Well, if you look at it sideways, it could be a pair of eyes. Anyone interested in punctuation has a dual reason to feel aggrieved about smileys, because not only are they a paltry substitute for expressing oneself properly they are also designed by people who evidently thought the punctuation marks on the standard keyboard cried out for an ornamental function. Just add the right emoticon to your email and everyone will know what self-expressive effect you thought you kind-of had in mind. And a smiley is, famously, this:įorget the idea of selecting the right words in the right order and channelling the reader's attention by means of artful pointing. Emoticons are the proper name for smileys. That's why they came up with the emoticon, too-the emoticon being the greatest (or most desperate, depending how you look at it) advance in punctuation since the question mark in the reign of Charlemagne.
Which is why, of course, people use so many dashes and italics and capitals ("I AM joking!") to compensate. Using examples from literature, history, neighborhood signage, and her own imagination, Truss shows how meaning is shaped by commas and apostrophes, and the hilarious consequences of punctuation gone awry.įeaturing a foreword by Frank McCourt, and interspersed with a lively history of punctuation from the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, Eats, Shoots & Leaves makes a powerful case for the preservation of proper punctuation.“Clicking on "send" has its limitations as a system of subtle communication.
In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Lynne Truss, gravely concerned about our current grammatical state, boldly defends proper punctuation. She proclaims, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. The spirited and scholarly #1 New York Timesbestseller combines boisterous history with grammar how-to’s to show how important punctuation is in our world-period.
0 kommentar(er)
