I know, I know, Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves) is to be thanked. Fellow-English teacher Frank McCourt has said “If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I’d nominate her for sainthood.” But I’m unimpressed. Witty engagement with punctuation might provoke some people. I prefer Orwell. Or Pinter. Or Alan Bennett’s diaries in a recent London Revew of Books. Here is Bennett’s entry for 4 August, 2005: “One has grown accustomed to — inured to would I suppose be nearer the truth — T. Blair’s use of supplementary adverbs, ‘I honestly believe’, ‘I really think’, which diminish rather than augment his credibility. It’s always sloppy but sometimes offensive. A propos the shooting of Mr de Menezes the prime minister says: ‘I understand entirely the feelings of the young man’s family.’ No ordinary person would put it like this. The only way Mr Blair could ‘understand entirely‘ the feelings of the young man’s family would be if Euan Blair had been hunted down in Whitehall, stumbled on the steps of Downing Street and he, too, had been despatched with seven shots to the head. Then Mr Blair would have had that entire understanding to which he so glibly lays claim, the claiming, one feels, part of his now developing role as Father of the People.”