Must Read - Eats, Shoots and Leaves

A while ago, I mentioned that I was reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves, a great little book on punctuation. I finally finished it this week, and I must say there was a lot that I didn’t know about a lot of things. One problem is that the author is British, and therefore included lots of British slang. Many times, I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

It did explain why so many people are now putting their punctuation marks (commas and periods) outside quotation marks. I had wondered if that rule had changed recently, or if writers are being churned out that don’t know punctuation rules. Hey, I had one high school English teacher who operated about four grade levels lower than the dumbest student in the classroom. Most of us could have skipped that class. Luckily, my previous teachers had been very competent, and their training has served me well enough to survive as a freelance writer for a lot of years. And I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not anywhere near perfect.

As for punctuation, the book reveals that putting commas and periods outside the quotation marks is the British way. We Americans put ours inside quotation marks. Aha!

Has the global economy changed the rules for Americans? No, although it might be trending that way—especially if writers produce articles for a magazine or newspaper with an International readership. As you know, the British also spell some words such as color with an ou, as in colour. That’s why it’s necessary to study a copy of the publication you’re writing for, and ask for a copy of their “writer’s guidelines.” For now, the rule still stands that commas and periods should be inside the quotation marks for American markets.

Sometimes, failure to understand little details like those mentioned above can stop a good writer from submitting work to magazines because they’re unsure of the rules. Don’t let it stop you from following your dreams. There are a lot of books in libraries that can provide you with the confidence to submit articles to magazines, and after perusing a copy of your targeted magazine and its guidelines, you can compete with the best of them.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves mentioned a few other instances where the rules differ between Americans and British grammar and punctuation, so you might want to pick up a copy at the library and find out what you may not know about punctuation.