Lynne Truss
Lynne Truss
Lynne Trussis an English writer and journalist. Her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation was a best-seller in 2003. In August 2014, Truss was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
mean obvious
But, come on. Just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's not true.
jobs mean effort
I mean, full stops are quite important, aren't they? Yet by contrast to the versatile apostrophe, they are stolid little chaps, to say the least. In fact one might dare to say that while the full stop is the lumpen male of the punctuation world (do one job at a time; do it well; forget about it instantly), the apostrophe is the frantically multi-tasking female, dotting hither and yon, and succumbing to burn-out from all the thankless effort.
mean choices brain
Oh, the illusion of choice in the modern world - don't get me started. But don't you agree that the Internet has softened our brains and made us forget that 'choice' used to mean something different from selecting options from menus?
communication mean use
Texting is a supremely secretive medium of communication - it's like passing a note - and this means we should be very careful what we use it for.
mean people political
The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one's peril: by means of a considerable circular logic, such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad.
stupid mean use
The rule is: don’t use commas like a stupid person. I mean it.
bloody rudeness utter
the utter bloody rudeness of the world today.
atrocities biggest effect happiness life lurking people shoots unaware worst
In my worst moments, I think the biggest effect of 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' was to kill the happiness of people who had previously skipped through life, unaware of all the atrocities lurking in the world around them.
black-and-white pandas bears
Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.
challenges world sad-person
My favorite thing in the world is a quiz show, 'University Challenge,' so you can see what kind of sad person I am.
hate eye people
I hate to be treated as if I'm invisible. I get incensed when people talk across me or refuse to catch my eye in a restaurant or shop.
giving people horror
I do needlepoint from kits. I give them as gifts to people in the form of cushion covers and they are often speechless with horror.
years important
I am not against marriage. I lived with someone for 11 years. But we weren't in love, and I thought that was quite important.
lovely saying-hello email
As with email, the recipient of a texted question seems to have the option to ignore it, while nevertheless saying, 'Hello, lovely day,' and so on.