HOW important is punctuation? Should we insist students master it? Or can we ignore it, since it is but a printing convention? After all, we don't use punctuation in speech.

Anyone inclined to adopt such a laissez faire attitude might consider the examples below. Punctuation is a matter not just for fussy sticklers. A great deal rides on the properly placed comma, full stop or apostrophe.

'The panda eats shoots and leaves.' 'The panda eats, shoots and leaves.'

'Charles the First walked and talked. Half an hour after, his head was cut off.' 'Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off.'

'A woman, without her man, is nothing.' 'A woman: without her, man is nothing.'

'Giant Kid Playground.' 'Giant Kid's Playground.'

'Dear Jack: I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy - will you let me be yours? - Jill'.

'Dear Jack: I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be? Yours, Jill'.

All of the above examples come from a book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach To Punctuation, by journalist Lynne Truss. A best seller in Britain since its publication last year, it is a fun introduction to a subject that is hardly taught in schools - or if taught, cursorily, with nothing like the attention paid to tenses, for instance.

And yet, that little dot known as the full stop (or period in America); that tadpoley-looking thing known as the comma; that apostrophe to distinguish (among other things) its from it's; that hyphen, exclamation, question mark, dash, parenthesis, ellipsis; that semi-colon that George Orwell detested, but which I adore (did I have to use so many in this sentence, though?) - all these marks are the indispensable 'traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop' (which this sentence should have miles before now!), (incidentally, should that previous , have been a ; or - or :?) and if we ignore these signals (I mean punctuation), we will cause a linguistic smash-up just as surely as running a red light would a road accident...this sentence being a prime example of the former: proving conclusively that punctuation is 'a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling'.:)

'It is no accident,' as Ms Truss points out, 'that the word 'punctilious' ('attentive to formality or etiquette') comes from the same original root word as punctuation.' But punctuation, as she also goes on to explain humorously, is more than a matter of courtesy. Misplaced commas have caused schisms; questionable ones have occasioned lawsuits.

Consider this passage from Luke, xxiii, 43, reporting Christ's words to one of the criminals who was crucified with Him: 'Verily I say unto thee, Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.'

That is how the Protestant Bible renders the passage, placing the comma after 'thee'. The implication is the thief will be translated straight into Paradise with Jesus, skipping 'the whole unpleasant business of Purgatory', as Ms Truss puts it.

Now consider how the Catholic Bible renders the same passage: 'Verily I say unto thee today, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.' The implication here is the thief will be translated into Paradise, but not immediately, leaving 'Purgatory nicely in the picture for Catholics, who believe in it.' One wonders: If Luke had got not only Christ's words right, but also the precise punctuation He intended, would Christendom have been riven into so many pieces?

As for legal confusions, take this passage in a will: 'I, Graham Greene, grant permission to Norman Sherry, my authorised biographer, excluding any other to quote from my own copyrighted material published or unpublished.' Greene, having an itchy blue pencil, added a comma after 'excluding any other', and promptly died the next day.

Does the will say that Mr Sherry is the only person who can use the material? Or did Greene insert the comma to indicate that Mr Sherry was the only biographer who could do so, but other researchers, not engaged in biography, could too? The dispute is still raging, 12 years after the novelist's death in 1991.

Punctuation doesn't usually have such weighty consequences, of course. For most of us, it is sufficient to master its basic rules. For example: When two sentences are joined together using conjunctions such as 'and' or 'but', use a comma - 'He woke up early, but wished he hadn't'. But when the linking words are 'however' or 'consequently', use a semi-colon - 'He woke up early; consequently, he felt tired'.

The rules are not complex. Most are logical and necessary; a few are controversial. Orwell, as I mentioned, detested the semi-colon, since it was replaceable with a full stop (as in the previous sentence). But others were partial to it, believing it lent 'a pleasant feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer' - as indeed it does in this delightful book by Ms Truss, which I recommend highly to all sticklers and would-be sticklers.

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article from the Straits Times.

-Kenneth

~we ARE in tune ;D~ (Some1 change script here >.<)