Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation - Hardcover

Lederer, Richard; Shore, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312342543 ISBN 13: 9780312342548

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2005

Synopsis

Are you confounded by commas, addled by apostrophes, or queasy about quotation marks? Do you believe a bracket is just a support for a wall shelf, a dash is something you make for the bathroom, and a colon and semicolon are large and small intestines? If so, language humorists Richard Lederer and John Shore (with the sprightly aid of illustrator Jim McLean), have written the perfect book to help make your written words perfectly precise and punctuationally profound.
Don't expect Comma Sense to be a dry, academic tome. On the contrary, the authors show how each mark of punctuation--no matter how seemingly arcane--can be effortlessly associated with a great American icon: the underrated yet powerful period with Seabiscuit; the jazzy semicolon with Duke Ellington; even the rebel apostrophe with famed outlaw Jesse James. But this book is way more than a flight of whimsy. When you've finished Comma Sense, you'll not only have mastered everything you need to know about punctuation through Lederer and Shore's simple, clear, and right-on-the-mark rules, you'll have had fun doing so. When you're done laughing and learning, you'll be a veritable punctuation whiz, ready to make your marks accurately, sensitively, and effectively.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Of my 465 books on punctuation---I've read them all---Comma Sense is the wisest and funniest. It's the only one you really need."
---Bryan A. Garner, author of Garner's Modern American Usage

"A thorough field guide to the pesky little critters of the punctuation forest.
Lederer and Shore hit the marks!"
---Bill Walsh, author of The Elephants of Style

"Who else would call the exclamation point 'this titan of tingle, this prince of palpitation'? Who else would call the apostrophe the Jesse James of punctuation? Who else would compare the dash to Fred Astaire, the semicolon to Duke Ellington, and parentheses (yes, my darlings) to Louella Parsons? It can only be Richard Lederer, Viceroy of Verbivores, and his trusty sidekick, John Shore."
---Patricia T. O'Conner, author of Woe Is I

"Punctuation needn't be perplexing or painful, as Richard Lederer and John Shore make abundantly clear. Comma Sense is full of easy-to-understand guidance for the grammatically challenged---and loads of laughs besides!"
--- Martha Barnette, author of Dog Days and Dandelions

"If America had 'Living National Treasures,' the way Japan and Korea do, Richard Lederer would be one."
---Barbara Wallraff, author of Your Own Words

About the Author:

Richard Lederer, Ph.D., is the author of more than thirty books on the English language, including Anguished English and A Man of My Words. His syndicated column, "Looking at Language," appears in newspapers and magazines nationwide, and he co-hosts a weekly show on San Diego Public Radio. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife.

John Shore is a magazine writer and editor in San Diego. He is the author of Penguins, Pain, & The Whole Shebang: Why I Do The Things I Do, by God (as told to John Shore).

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0312342543
• ISBN 13: 9780312342548
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160