Can You Eat, Shoot & Leave? (Workbook)

Clare Dignall, Lynne Truss

• Publisher: Collins
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780007440931
• eBook ISBN: 9780007461363
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: English Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The punctuation workout for sticklers and rookies alike.

The punctuation panda is back!

Armed with a permanent marker, a smidgen of confidence, and a copy of ‘Can You Eat, Shoot and Leave?’, everyone now has the chance to become a member of the punctuation elite.

Established punctuation sticklers:
Fine-tune existing skills, taking guilty pleasure from testing your (already somewhat unsettling) seventh sense.

Confused novices:
Never again inflict flawed and perplexing punctuation on your innocent readers.

The only official workbook for the international bestseller ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves.’

• Introductory Cosmo-style questionnaire helps readers identify their level of punctuation prowess.
• Mirrors the structure and light-hearted style of Lynne Truss’s hugely popular ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’. Topics include apostrophes, commas, colons and semicolons, hyphens and more.
• Each chapter concentrates on one particular punctuation mark. Origin, usage rules and their exceptions introduce the entertaining activities which have a ‘challenge-yourself’ format.
• The bite-sized exercises in each chapter and longer texts in ‘The Final Challenge’ put punctuation skills to the test.
• Specially designed for eReaders including iPad, with clear text throughout.

Answers

At Your Service, Master: The Apostrophe

Warm-up

1 A She didn’t believe that he’d ever return to their house’s fireside.

B He hadn’t shown up since 1987. But if her mother said he’d turn up in two weeks’ time, she’d probably be right.

2 A Come on Dover, move yer bloomin’ arse!

B In ’ertford, ’ereford and ’ampshire, ’urricanes ’ardly ever ’appen.

Exercise 1

1 There is an iron ‘scold’s bridle’ in Walton Church. They used these things in ancient days for curbing women’s tongues. They have given up the attempt now. I suppose iron was getting scarce, and nothing else would be strong enough.

2 A It currently refers to the toys for one boy. They meant to say Boys’ toys.

B It currently refers to the toys for one girl. They meant to say Girls’ toys.

C It currently refers to the toys for one kid. They meant to say Kids’ DVDs.

3 It currently says ‘no one dog is allowed’. (That is, a contraction rather than a plural.) They presumably meant to say ‘No dogs allowed, please’.

4 A More than one newspaper has been ruined by the brilliant writer in the editor’s chair.

B A beginner’s guide to catching up online.

C The lads’ big night out went tits up. Their two minibuses’ exhausts were plugged by a hen party gone bad.

D Their horror stories’ similarities were remarkable.

5 A ‘There she goes,’ he said, ‘there she goes, with two pounds’ worth of food on board that belongs to me, and that I haven’t had.’

B In two weeks’ time I’ll be drinking cold cider in Somerset, but I’m giving my boss not one sodding day’s notice.

6 A A woman’s work is never done.

B Let’s have a drink for old times’ sake. (‘Times’ are plural here, hence the placement of the apostrophe.)

C Hurry up, for Pete’s sake!

7 A The last moon landing was in the winter of ’72, the year I was born.

B My mum wore miniskirts in the ’60s; did yours?

C I was in the class of ’92. It was a big’

The apostrophe is especially valuable in the last example; here it acts both to contract the date and to clarify the class size.

8 ‘It’s’ and ‘its’ are simple really; the confusion has only come about because everyone else keeps getting it wrong.

A It’s not over ’til the fat lady sings.

B The dog has had its day.

C It’s a Wonderful Life.

D Any colour – so long as it’s black.

E The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.

9 Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve. The bottom line is we didn’t do it.

10 Lipsmackin’ thirstquenchin’ acetastin’ motivatin’ goodbuzzin’ cooltalkin’ highwalkin’ fastlivin’ evergivin’ coolfizzin’ Pepsi!

11 Author Michael Faber used the following apostrophes to indicate his character’s Cockney accent:

‘Imagine though,’ says Caroline. ‘A picture of you still bein’ there, ’undreds of years after you’ve died. An’ if I pulled a face, that’s the face I’d ’ave forever… It makes me shiver, it does.’

12 A Scarlett O’Hara knew there were four i’s in Mississippi.

B Mr O’Malley had lost all the a’s and u’s from his Scrabble set.

C Miss O’Reilly told me to change all my essay’s Hi’s into Hello’s.

Exercise 2

1 C: Chris Evans’s autobiography will have caused a few blushes.

2 B: Unsurpassed yet often variable; one way to describe Dickens’s writings.

3 B: I loved E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News.

4 C and B: Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude has been read from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.

5 The Queen’s never been to Queens’ College Cambridge, but did you say you’re pretty sure she’s been to Queen’s College Oxford?

6 A I was supposed to be in St Albans, Vermont, for their All Saints’ Day service. It was just about Veterans Day before I damn well got there!

B I’ve never liked April Fools’ Day; a practical joke’s not everyone’s cup of tea, is it?

7 A: Jesus Cristiano Cervantes was an overweight plumber from Mexico City. Because he was an atheist, Jesus’s first name had always been an embarrassment.

8 A Of Jesus’ disciples, I think Thomas was probably th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Lynne Truss
• Who Do You Think You Are?
• At Your Service, Master: The Apostrophe
• Catch My Meaning? Catch Your Breath: The Comma
• A Theatrical Flourish: The Colon and Semicolon
• Express Yourself: The Expressive Marks
• When Words Collide: The Hyphen
• The Challenge
• The Last Crusade
• Answers
• References