Wednesday, January 19, 2011

witty banter




A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
"Why?" asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"Well, I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'

-Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss

the importance of punctuation and, consequently, of grammar.
gets me every time.