Did you ever know punctuation could be such fun?

Question

Quoting from "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss: "Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, like this, UP, for hours if necessary, UP, like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over and you run out of steam anyway and then eventually with the help of three dots ... you stop."

Answer 1

Hey, auntb. My grammar students last semester thought it was hilarious that I got so excited about grammar. I think this example is really cute, but do you think it would really help someone who didn't know how to use commas?

Answer 2

Is this why English 101 is so much FUN?

What every happened to the good ole English words like,

"As If dude", gag me with a spoon, or how about those quaint old American sayings, "Way Cool" and" Gnarly"? Then we have the ever succinct American Icon Homer Simpson who says so much with his clever, "Doh!"

Now, some purists may say that the above is not English
at all. Well, it certainly may not be the Queen's English, but it is English all the same, and has earned a warm spot in many a rebellious sort who tires of the people who say that only their version of language is correct.

I say, the more the merrier. Differences are really what make life so interesting. Maybe sometimes confusing, but never-the less, interesting and sometimes fun, as well as thought provoking, as I hope this missive is for those that took the time to peruse it.

Answer 3

ALL YOU WILL EVER NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PUNCTUATION. It is hopeless to attempt in any serious way to punctuate your prose correctly if you have no idea what kind of sentence you are dealing with (and therefore how it is put together). ... use a semicolon when you could choose some other way to ... think football is more fun because it is a team ...

Answer 4

That's brilliant! I think I'll use it with my third-graders...Great visual! Thanks!