In her regular weekly column, Lynne Truss decides she has had enough of lecturing people about punctuation

Lynne Truss: it's no longer useful to be able to read accurately

Lynne Truss Photo: Andrew Crowley

By Lynne Truss

The Telegraph - 20 Oct 2013

I am giving a lecture on punctuation this week. And since it is now exactly 10 years since my book Eats, Shoots & Leaves came out, I have decided that this is positively the last time I will speak about punctuation, because quite honestly enough is enough. I still find signs such as children drive slowly funny, of course. I expect I always will. (Although if children are to drive at all, I’d much prefer it to be in a lowish gear, wouldn’t you?). Just the other day, a friend sent me a genuine snap of a “To Let” board which included the interesting enticement bill’s included. As time goes by, of course, fewer and fewer people will spot the unintended message created by such a rogue apostrophe, because either a) they won’t recognise the apostrophe as part of the meaning, or b) they simply won’t see the apostrophe. Last week when I moved house, the young man from the removal company packed up boxes and boxes of books, and on the top of each he has written (hilariously, in the circumstances) book’s.

There’s a line in Christopher Hampton’s ancient play The Philanthropist that I am very fond of quoting. The hero of the play is a young academic whose mental curiosity (linked with an almost autistic emotional detachment) is forever getting him into trouble. When his girlfriend complains, “You never understand what I’m trying to say!”, it’s obviously a cue for him to apologise, but instead he analyses the accusation, and says carefully, “Yes, but I think I do understand what you do say.” Well, it’s getting less and less useful in life to be able to read things accurately – not just for the punctuation, but for the plain sense. 
A couple of weeks ago, I found myself looking at the statement for an old Nationwide mortgage, which showed that I had “overpaid” by quite a large sum. That’s what it said. However, when I called the Nationwide to demand my money back, they explained that this heading concerned a sort-of notional reserve that I could re-borrow if I wanted to. “So why does it say 'Amount Overpaid’?” I asked. “Why doesn’t it say 'Amount That May Be Re-Borrowed’?” Naturally, they didn’t understand what my problem was. Someone in charge of mortgage statements had tried to represent a concept in words and had come up with the wrong ones, but only a pedant (and an awkward-minded one at that) could possibly object. 
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