Penguin Guide to Punctuation by R. L. Trask
Focusing on British and Commonwealth punctuation, but also explaining American usage, this text contains clear and up-to-date definitions of each type of punctuation. It includes the correct use of capital letters, contractions and abbreviations, italics, boldface and the special characters available on a word processor.
My Thoughts:
I can never remember specifically doing punctuation at school. Well, not to any real degree of intimacy. And if I did, I must have forgotten it all because if you asked my the rules on colons and semicolons and that blasted apostrophe, especially after words ending with an s, well I’d be doomed. So, as a writer I though I’d better take my craft a bit more seriously and look it up.
This book is absolutely wonderful. It’s small book. It’s concise, to the point and easy to understand. It goes through each piece of punctuation chapter by chapter and breaks it down, explaining the rules and giving examples. It starts easy with the second chapter (the first is on why the need to learn to punctuate) being about the full stop, question mark and exclamation mark. It then goes in for the kill with the comma. Seriously. The comma. No, the rule about using the comma when you need to breathe isn’t correct. Did you know there are actually four uses of the simple comma? Four!
Yes, I will be keeping this book by my laptop as I work.
It goes through abbreviations, quotation marks and quotes within quotation marks. It really is comprehensive for such a small book.
If you’re a writer and you maybe want to make sure you’re getting your punctuation right (and this book gives the UK and US versions) then I’d highly recommend this book. I know I will keep dipping into it every now and again just to remind myself about some of the rules. And yes, I’ve been very careful in the writing of this post!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book just on punctuation. I could probably use it for commas. According to my critique partners I don’t use them enough. (As opposed to most people who sneeze them all over a page.)
Exactly. I think people are one way or another with commas. I was amazed there were four distinct rules. It’s a book I’ll keep and use.
Rebecca – Sounds like something really important for the writer’s library. More than that, it sounds readable and useful. Thanks for sharing.
It’s certainly something I’ll be keeping by my side Margot :)
I’m, a, comma, abuser, I, use, them, far, too much, according to my expert friend. I hadn’t noticed, ;) The book sounds extremely useful, thanks.
Haha! I was using them where they felt natural. Who knew there were comma rules! ;)
Might grab this little book. I am a comma abuser as well!
I will have to keep referring back to the comma chapter. Specific purposes and four rules but they’re very specific!
Like you I don’t really remember particular lessons on punctuation and my use of commas has always been based upon ‘when you breathe.’ Perhaps I should get a copy to work out what I should be doing with them?
It is a handy little book. Compact and to the point. I’d recommend it to anyone interested.
This sounds like it’s exactly what I need. Like you, I can’t remember learning a lot about punctuation at school. It’s the ‘s that get me – to apostrophe or not to apostrophe, it’s so confusing!
It is! And yet this book is so compact it clears everything up in no time at all. I’ll definitely be keeping it close. It’s worth having.
It’s an age thing – my generation had punctuation drummed into them like the world would end if we misplaced a comma. It’s taken me years to relax a bit about it, though the fact that I’ve forgotten a lot of it now helps! Still, every time I use a – or a … I can hear my old English teacher groaning and tutting. I always think you can age a reviewer based on how picky they get about poor punctuation in books. So I try to pretend it doesn’t bother me and use the occasional ‘amazeballs’ to make people think I’m young and cool…is it working? ;)
Seriously, it sound like a really useful book for anyone who writes for public consumption. I believe my teachers were right in insisting that well-punctuated writing is much easier to read and understand.
I’m not young but it still wasn’t something that was drummed into us to that extent. Maybe I was daydreaming during those classes ;)
I have several books like this and still find myself confused at times. I wish I could come up with one, but it escapes me at the moment. Maybe I need this book also.
It’s a compact little book. I’ll definitely be keeping it close.
Thank you for pointing this book out. Some rules are easier to learn than others and have place to look up what I shouldn’t forget is super helpful. I owe you :-)
Anna from Shout with Emaginette