When commas and pandas go rogue

Book cover image courtesy of Amazon

The classic joke is shown on the cover of a book by Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Gotham 2004). The subject is punctuation, and the joke goes something like this: A panda bear walks into a coffee shop and orders a sandwich and a coffee. He eats his meal, then pulls out a gun and shoots into the ceiling. "Why did you shoot those holes in my ceiling?" asks the mystified owner.

The panda bear takes a wildlife manual out of his back pocket and hands it to the restauranteur. "It's who I am," he says. "Look me up." Then he turns on his heel and leaves the cafe.

The owner closes up and calls a plasterer. While he's waiting for the repairman to come and fix the ceiling, he opens the wildlife book and finds the definition of panda, "a large black and white bear native to China. Diet consists mostly of eucalyptus. Eats, shoots and leaves."

He looks on the publication data page of the manual and then pulls out his cell phone and calls in his complaint to the publisher. "There's one comma too many in the panda entry in your wildlife manual," he says, "and a panda bear came in here and took advantage. I'll be sending you the bill for my new ceiling."