Maslin Watch: Grammar Cracks

Sorry I've been remiss lately, but duty beckons and all that. Anyway, in her most recent review, Maslin takes on "self-appointed grammar fiend" Lynne Truss and takes a bit of glee in allegedly catching a misplaced modifier; I'm reserving judgment until I can see the actual passage in Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Here's a cute trick:

Ms. Truss has not succeeded solely on the basis of her punctuation acumen (though that is considerable — and by the way, she finds dashes and parentheses annoying).

Not that I'm criticizing it; I'm about to get away with something similar in a review of another grammar book, describing a reader's probable reaction to repeated agitation for a English third person singular gender-neutral pronoun by suggesting "one wonders what all the fuss is about." By the time Maslin purposefully misuses "it's," though, the schtick might be getting a bit old. Other than that, there's mostly a lot of quotation, but when you've got quotes this good, I suppose you might as well use them.

Lynne Truss will be appearing at Coliseum Books next Monday, so if you live in New York, maybe you should check her out.