English as she is misspoke and miswrote (Easts, Shites and Leaves, 2003)

A. Parody. Eats, Shites & Leaves. (2004) Piggy-backing on Lynn Truss’s Eats, Shoots, and Leaves (2003), this is a mildly amusing compilation of “crap English”. The compiler makes a few minor mistakes, mostly because of the widely-shared confusion between grammar and usage, and much of the material can be found elsewhere. Some of it merely illustrates the quirks of English spelling, especially of homonyms. He includes proverbs, I suppose because most of them have become cliches.

The best bits are the inadvertent weirdness caused by errors in diction (I am a person who recognises the fallacy of humans), the clash of cliches (If you stand still, there’s only one way to go, and that’s backwards), the difference between spoken and written syntax (I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith), simple carelessness (The patient has no past history of suicides), and so on. I bought my copy from a guy at the Timber Village Market. He was toting used books around in van, and looked hopeful when I approached. Probably overpaid, which makes it a keeper – too valuable to give away. ***