Status Updates From Eats, Shoots & Leaves

One of my creative writing professors recommended this book a few years ago, and I wish I would’ve gotten around to reading it sooner. I didn’t expect an analysis of grammar rules to be so entertaining, but I am actively cackling on the subway as I read this. Genuinely may be my best read of 2026 so far.

“…If it goes, the degree of intellectual impoverishment we face is unimaginable.”

“We have a language that if full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and allusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places. Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking.”

“…Forget the idea of selecting the right words in the right order and channeling the reader’s attention by means of artful pointing. Just add the right emoticon to your email and everyone will know what self-expressive effect you thought you kind-of had in mind.”

“…the emoticon being the greatest (or the most desperate, depending how you look at it) advance in punctuation since the question mark in the reign of Charlemagne…”

“I know that language moves on. It has to. Not once have I ever stopped to feel sorry for those Egyptian hieroglyph artists tossed on the scrapheap during a former linguistic transition…But I can’t help feeling that our punctuation system, which has served the written word with grace and ingenuity for centuries, must not be allowed to disappear without a fight.”