Cutting a Dash (MP3): Eats, Shoots & Leaves

The BBC Radio 4 series that inspired the bestselling book EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES.

The runaway success of Eats, Shoots and Leaves brought millions of grammar geeks out of the closet and made it cool to care about punctuation. This is the radio series that started it all: five programmes in which Lynne Truss explores changing fashions in punctuation.

She accompanies the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society through Berwick Street Market on a hunt for the 'greengrocer's apostrophe', enters the classroom to hear how children learn punctuation, and finds out whether anyone punctuates text messages. Talking to writers and experts like Fay Weldon and David Crystal, she discovers the origins of the comma in Greek drama and Gregorian chant, considers the case for 'semicolonic irrigation' and asks how a writer's choice of punctuation expresses his tone of voice. Looking into the future, she wonders if 'emoticons' will put colons, commas and apostrophes on the endangered species list.

Impassioned, informative and always amusing, this is an essential listen for anyone who loves language.