War of Words - UK

June 2007
English may be the intenational language of the 21st century but how should it be spoken and written? A million dollar industry has developed to stop the English language being 'used and abused'.

A book about the correct use of English grammar may seem like a surprise bestseller. But Lynne Truss's 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' has already sold 3 million copies. Truss believes she's struck a chord with people who feel 'horror' at seeing English misused. But Professor David Crystal sees things differently. "Where people see deterioration, I see expressive development".

Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• English
• grammar
• Lynne
• Truss
• Eats
• Shoots
• Leaves
• David
• Crystal
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman
• journeyman pictures

[Takaouto]

Thank you for the upload! I absolutely ADORE Crystal's work. I'd willingly travel to Wales to get his signature on my book. XDD

[DrumEmaHer0]

The way she sold so many books is because, she makes it funny. Its hard to read a book that is based on punctuation because it's so boring.

[Sqid101]

@brianchristie I would omit the apostrophe in "CD's", but without claiming to be an expert on this, I thought the apostrophe indicated the genitive case, which marks a noun as modifying another noun. I believe a rule of thumb is that the genitive can be expressed with an "of" or "for" construction. But while it often marks a noun as possessing another it can indicate other relationships:

Two weeks' rent

Dublin's fair city (The fair city of Dublin)

For Heaven's sake

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

[ironweighted]

I think it was David Crystal who once pointed out that Lynne Truss's 'zero tolerance' to punctuation means that there should be NO punctuation at all!

I think that they know each other quite well and Truss seems much less radical than she is made out to be... It's hilarious that she goes around changing wrong punctuation. 

[Ilmatar7]

What pains me is when people correct what they think is wrong, when it is in fact correct. Grammar Nazis should at LEAST know what they're doing. Overcorrection and back-formations are a GREAT deal more painful to the language than grammatical laxness in informal situations.

[brianchristie]

I appreciate your response, but still disagree. In a nutshell the apostrophe would illustrate possession or belongingness. Since the CDs don't possess anything (the CDs what?) the apostrophe is omitted. As for using an apostrophe for I's and T's this is acceptable because these are plurals of letters and digits. One can also omit the apostrophe (ex. Is and Ts), which, oddly enough, is also deemed acceptable even though it looks strange.

[marcoxyzxyz]

Er... I am afraid "CD's" is not a typo. Do you regard "dot your I's and dash your T's" as a typo? In that case, I should drop my Longman English Grammar handbook in the garbage bin instantly.

[gibb253]

Crystal is stuck in the 80's, when "non prescriptive" was the buzzword, with the result that we now have a generation of illiterate journalists in the British press.e.g. Clarkson, who thinks very old people are called centurions instead of centenarians.

[brianchristie]

I support Lynne Truss and her quest for proper English. I, too, take it personally (and actually get angry) when I see signs (and some are huge!) with typos: book's, CD's, dog's, photo's, etc. I've got my big black marker and liquid paper Lynne and doing what I can to change the world!

[DentonUAC]

Unless it's intentional satire, I don't even begin to understand how someone can write, "crystal is being so silly" without any kind of punctuation.

That post does illustrate that one can still be understood without strict adherence to standard English, however. I'm with Crystal all the way on this, though I respect where Ms. Truss is coming from.