Lynne Truss
Lynne Truss
Lynne Trussis an English writer and journalist. Her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation was a best-seller in 2003. In August 2014, Truss was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
communication mean use
Texting is a supremely secretive medium of communication - it's like passing a note - and this means we should be very careful what we use it for.
use world tendencies
What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?
arbitrary vapour way
The reason it's worth standing up for punctuation is not that it's an arbitrary system of notation known only to an over-sensitive elite who have attacks of the vapours when they see it misapplied. The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning.
imagination manners persons
Manners are about imagination, ultimately. They are about imagining being the other person.
real winning play
...when a phone call competes for attention with a real-world conversation, it wins. Everyone knows the distinctive high-and-dry feeling of being abandoned for a phone call, and of having to compensate - with quite elaborate behaviours = for the sudden half-disappearance of the person we were just speaking to. 'Go ahead!' we say. 'Don't mind us! Oh look, here's a magazine I can read!' When the call is over, other rituals come into play, to minimise the disruption caused and to restore good feeling.
communication care texting
Texting is a fundamentally sneaky form of communication, which we should despise, but it is such a boon we don't care. We are all sneaks now.
personality defects comes-and-goes
What one discovers in life, I find, is that one's personality defects don't come and go.
home people gone
What I have always liked about Brighton is its impersonality. Since the 18th century, people have come, used the place and gone home again.
enemy piers want
You don't want to make an enemy of Piers Morgan.
character judging faces
One of the things that all authors of fiction must learn to judge is whether - and in what detail - to describe the face of a character.
sorry laughing comedian
Old radio comedy makes me laugh, as well as 'I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue' and comedians like Paul Merton.
challenges world sad-person
My favorite thing in the world is a quiz show, 'University Challenge,' so you can see what kind of sad person I am.
giving people horror
I do needlepoint from kits. I give them as gifts to people in the form of cushion covers and they are often speechless with horror.
book giving people
All writers learn this, in time: don't show your work to other people until it's safely finished. Even discussing your unborn book in quite general terms can be such an undermining experience that, afterwards, you give it up and go to live in Guatemala.