Comma Sense: A Fundamental Guide to Punctuation

by Richard Lederer and John Shore

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312342543
• ISBN13: 9780312342548
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 140 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Indispensible guide to grammer & punctuation

I love this book and refer to it often. The book's format makes it very easy to find what you are looking for, with lots of examples to show how a certain punctuation is used. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to brush up on their rusty knowledge.

Buy it , you'll like it.

This is the unique book that has you mentally tallying up your friend's birthdays before you get to the last chapter (lets see... I can buy it for Ken, and Susie, and my daughter so she won't dog-ear my copy...). I picked this up for an educationally boring read that would knock me out at bedtime and instead found myself staying up most of the night laughing. Comma Sense is the darndest, funniest, wittiest educational book I've ever read. You can't help but learn something... it sort of seeps into your brain while you're distracted with a mental picture of what the Andrew Sisters would look like if viewed from above (yes, of COURSE they would look like...well, read Chapter 13 and you'll find out). I would write more, but I have to rush out now and buy extra copies for everyone I know.

Not just another book on punctuation

Not just another book on punctuation! What can Comma Sense: A Fundamental Guide To Punctuation hold over its many competitors? 'Fun' is the operative word here, as Richard Lederer and John Shore poke fun at the misuse of punctuation and how choices in punctuation can have very different results. Plenty of examples come couched in this humor, which makes Comma Sense quite easy to learn. Just consider that here the exclamation point is the 'titan of tingle, the prince of palpitation' and you have some idea of the allure of Comma Sense - and its potential of educating those who traditionally wouldn't touch grammar books with a ten-foot pole.

Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Pronunciation.

For me, personally, this was the right book at the right time. I was searching for a source that would support or contrast the recent (British) publication entitled: EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES which, while an excellent and useful guide, left me confounded regarding its appropriateness for American English. This matter was settled promptly by the authors of the subject. My recent re-interest in writing improvement and excellence, aside from standard business letters, has been spurned by an increased usage of email. I am familiar with Richard Lederer's work and use of humor, and this lived up to and exceeded my expectations: All issues pertaining to punctuation are addressed; and all conceivable questions answered. Additionally, the handy "review" section following the last chapter makes this an invaluable, easy-to-use, portable guide. This is far more than recommendable: it's necessary!

Making Punctuation Fun and Easy

Probably the most entertaining book on proper punctuation ever written. It should be in the hands of every student from third grade through college, as well as anyone who ever has to write a business letter or resume. The rules are very simple and made both funny and understandable. You will probably never find a book on language that is so much fun reading. And reading it will almost certainly improve your letter and paper writing. A wonderful Christmas present for a teen-ager. The book seems a natural for series of educational shorts for use in schools, enabling Toastmaster "Golden Gaval" winner Lederer to do what he likes to best: Educate children in good English. Short but one of the best books Mr. Lederer has written.