Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Gibson, Rhonda, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Lynne Truss. New York: Gotham Books. 209 pp. $17.50 hbk.

A panda walks into a café. 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 bearlike mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

This joke is the basis for the …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Contributors: Gibson, Rhonda - Author. Journal title: Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. Volume: 81. Issue: 4 Publication date: Winter 2004. Page number: 936+. © Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Winter 2007. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.