- Hardcover: 162 pages
- Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books Ltd; First Edition edition (1 Sep 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1843170981
- ISBN-13: 978-1843170983
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.4 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
66,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3 in Books > Sports, Hobbies & Games > Hobbies & Games > Gambling > Craps
- #100 in Books > Humour > Parodies
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
Eats, Shites and Leaves is a celebration of all things shite about the misuse of English, highlighting the prevalence of absent apostrophes, ghastly grammar, suspect sentences and rambling repetitiveness, commentators' claptrap, tortuous tautologies, insane instructions and quirky quotations in society today.
This essential collection touches upon ambiguous adverts - 'Why not have the kids shot for Easter, or have a family portrait taken?'; dangling modifiers - 'She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate directions in early December'; senseless statements - 'With half the race gone, there is half the race still to go'; and cloying cliches - 'If you find yourself in hot water, put your best foot forward'; and also includes lists of malapropisms, euphemisms, misspellings, rhyming slang and puns.
From the Publisher
" I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant' - Robert McCloskey, US State Department Spokesman
Featuring a plethora of examples that show how to get the worst out of the world's most commonly spoken language, Eats, Shites and Leaves is a wittily informative insight into how the English language can be used and abused in the twenty-first century.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
183 of 194 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
For the English Lovers/Teachers Inside all of Us,
This review is from: Eats, Shites & Leaves: Crap English and How to Use It (Hardcover)
"Eats, Shites and Leaves" is the parody of Lynne Truss' "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" and is a much kinder read for anyone interested enough to give it a go. I would suggest that it is mostly suited for those with a minor obsession with the English Language; whether they are students, teachers or just "Sticklers" who appreciate English fully and can still joke about it. As an English Student, I found the book both interesting and entertaining, even though at first glance it appears to be a list of English "Do's and Don'ts"; which by the way quite a lot of it is. If you can plough through the lists and deliberate mistakes (I recommend small doses), you'll find that it is very cleverly written and leaves you feeling as if you've been entertained, rather than preached to about spelling, grammar and "good English" for 165 pages. The whole book is brilliantly illustrated with examples of "bad English", delighting in the oral blunders of all the people we love to see stuff-up their precisely constructed speeches, ranging from George W. Bush to Britney Spears. If you are thinking about reading/purchasing this book and you haven't yet read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" I strongly advise that you do so at some point before or after reading "Eats, Shites and Leaves". Although they aren't closely related as parodies go, they do neatly complement each other and are more interesting in combination. Overall "Eats, Shites and Leaves" is a good read, managing to incorporate entertainment, interesting facts and actual education in an approachable and funny way. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for something different to read, especially with Christmas just around the corner.
89 of 94 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic in a class above the rest in its class,
By
This review is from: Eats, Shites & Leaves: Crap English and How to Use It (Hardcover)
This book is obviously a parody of "Eats shoots and leaves" and it's very good. As the title suggests it's about the bad use of English, or is that the use of bad English? Either way, it lists a number of examples of tortured syntax and downright bad grammar, and it does it in a generally off-the cuff manner.Examples of what not to do include repetition, repetition, switching sentences between being written in the active voice and when you write in the passive voice, and using prepositions to end sentences with. Did I mention repetition? It also includes a number of examples of celebrity-speak and signs that simply boggle the mind - "Dog for sale - eats anything and likes children" being just one such example. Well worth a read.
97 of 122 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
..or how not to jump on a bandwagon,
By A Customer
This review is from: Eats, Shites & Leaves: Crap English and How to Use It (Hardcover)
This one of the very few books I have ever regretted buying.Starting off with a statement that seems to suggest that the relevance of rules in a living language are of minor importance - a stance with which I heartily disagree, incidentally - the book then goes off into a badly structured exposition of rules interspersed with attempts at humour. Eats, shoots, and leaves I read with enjoyment. It was both informative and entertaining, and had structure. This low-grade imitation I found myself skimming, trying to find something worth spending time reading. It was not a fruitful search. Eats, Shoots, and Leaves was an unexpected and surprising but well deserved success. I suppose it was bound to spawn copy-cats. This book, in my view, fails as an imitation and as a parody.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > History > Military History > Armed Forces > Naval Forces
- Books > Humour > Parodies
- Books > Reference > Language > Grammar, Structure & Syntax
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Linguistics > Reference
- Books > Sports, Hobbies & Games > Hobbies & Games > Gambling > Craps
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
