Communication Fundas - Part 9

Continuing on the subject of punctuation, I do not think there is a better book than Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. The blurb on the book says it all: "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation!".

Unlike other books on Grammar, this one is wickedly humourous. It has been on various best seller lists, so you may already possess a copy. If you want to know more, you may want to read a review on Eats, Shoots and Leaves on my Squidoo lens. Enjoy!

Communication Fundas - Part 8

I read ...
"But Bachelier also ventured into new mathematical territory. Nearly a century before the great French mathematician Jean Baptiste Fourier had devised equations to describe the way heat speads, Bachelier knew the formulae well from his physics lectures."

This cannot be right! So, was Fourier incorrectly credited? I read it again ...

"But Bachelier also ventured into new mathematical territory. Nearly a century before, the great French mathematician Jean Baptiste Fourier had devised equations to describe the way heat speads. Bachelier knew the formulae well from his physics lectures." [Extract from: The {Mis)Behaviour of Markets by Benoit B. Madelbrot]

Ahhh! Now it made sense. When we read we tend to skip the punctuations. All of us know the difference between:

A woman without her man, is nothing

 and

A woman: without her, man is nothing.

And yet we persist in overlooking the importance of punctuation when we write and when we read.

Solution:
a) Read what you have written before shooting off that email / letter / report.
b) Reread what you read before coming to a conclusion.