Eats, Shoots, & Leaves: the quiz at Good Grief!

Published by Becky S April 27th, 2004 in style & grammar

Another silly grammar quiz–and this one’s wrong! The quiz promotes Lynn Truss’s (not this again) book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, and claims that the following sentence requires a comma:

Of course there weren’t enough tickets to go round.

A difference between British and American English? A comma is optional after a short, introductory prepositional phrase.

UPDATE: Sorry, forgot: link via BBSpot.

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1 angus Apr 27th, 2004 at 11:28 PM

Great fun … thanks for the link.

P.S. Apparently, I’m a stickler.
2 Marieke Apr 30th, 2004 at 4:47 AM

I agree!! I had that one wrong aswell and it really pissed me off because it was WRONG!!!
3 Debra Hamel May 10th, 2004 at 9:14 PM

Have you read the book? And if so, what did you think? I have a review of it up at my book review blog at http://www.book-blog.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_book-blog_archive.html#108242804367220310

I’m really enjoying your blog, particularly the grammar stuff.
4 ashley Jul 27th, 2004 at 2:58 AM

Of course you’re right. It’s overly prescriptive nonsense. (Unrelated: you deserve the award for best blog title ever.)

Good Grief!