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BBC Radio 7, 20 May 2010
Presented by Lynne Truss and first broadcast in 2002, this popular series
(originally broadcast on Radio 4) looked at punctuation and its misuses. This particular programme focused on the exclamation
mark and inverted commas, both of which could be used and abused in different ways. Writer Liz Jensen admitted that she had
dispensed with inverted commas (aka speech marks) altogether; her view was shared by Nigel Wall, who believed that speech
marks were a form of defence mechanism, distancing writers from their work. However Truss quoted the example of Jane Austen,
who wrote very precise punctuation in order to guide the readers' attention and/or interpretation of characters. We heard
a quotation from Emma, where Miss Bates' prattle is linked by successive semi-colons and speech marks, giving some
idea of the breathless way in which she spoke.
Many officials seldom have the chance to experiment with punctuation: Truss quoted
a short story by Anton Chekhov, whose protagonist had never managed to use an exclamation mark in his life. When he actually
had the opportunity to use it, he was so haunted by the experience that he was unable to sleep. Would that the same situation
prevailed today; for many of us accustomed to emails, the exclamation mark has become a popular speech mark, denoting lack
of seriousness or false emphasis. For F. Scott Fitzgerald they were like "laughing at your own jokes."
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