The other day, my little sister called me on the phone.  She wanted to know if there were any books on my bookshelf at home I would be willing to donate to the public library.  I have A LOT of books at home, so I asked her if she could read me some of the titles in order to determine which ones to donate.  We got through the main shelf rather quickly.  My sister thought we were done, but I have a pile on the second shelf underneath my desk containing most of the books I was forced to read during high school. I had forgotten about most of those books, mostly because I didn’t particularly enjoy them.   However, my sister read a title that caught me completely off guard.  The book is calledEats, Shoots, and Leaves.  It’s devoted entirely to the importance of grammar.

I know that probably sounds SUPER boring.  To be honest, I think I’m the only one in my English class who actually read the book. It didn’t tell a story or anything, but it talked about various misused bits of punctuation.  Some examples include: comma splicing, the difference between semicolons and colons, and the Oxford comma (something I really like using. I feel you should always use it when listing things).  Most importantly, it discusses how you can change the entire meaning of a sentence by adding a few bits of punctuation.  For example, the title comes from a sentence about a panda.  It goes something like “A panda was walks into a restaurant and eats shoots and leaves,” but when you add extra commas to it, the sentence turned into, “A panda walks into a restaurant and eats, shoots, and leaves.”  The first sentence sounds like the panda is eating shoots and leaves, while the second sentence made it sound like the panda ate his food, shot a gun, and left the restaurant (which totally makes no sense, but you get my point).

I mentioned before a lot of people didn’t even bother to read this book, and as uninteresting as it may sound it does teach a very important lesson.  We have to be careful of how we word our work, especially when we present it to other people.  I know it may seem trivial (and the example used was a little silly), but we cannot overlook the importance of grammar.  Sometimes when we just write for ourselves, we can get really sloppy. Then when it comes time to present written work, our bad writing habits have a chance to shine through.  We should always practice good writing habits, even though it might seem unimportant.