Colons to Newcastle

Remember when Edmund Morris subtly deflated the hype over Eats, Shoots & Leaves? Timothy Noah of Slate is even less impressed:

...[L]et's face it. Punctuation isn't hard or particularly complex. It's only with some effort—mostly the interjection of lots and lots of jokes—that Truss is able to make her book stretch to 204 pages. I don't dispute Truss' contention that people violate basic rules of punctuation on a regular basis and that the results can be maddening. Even educated people botch them. Even people who graduated with high honors from the finest universities in the world.

So how did the book get to be so popular? Noah postulates it's because its purchasers all like to imagine they're the ones who don't make those mistakes so they can "join her in bewailing, as you review these rules, the sorry ignorance of those who don't know them." And then he offers some great advice: "Pick up a book about something you don't know much about. Everyone is ignorant about something."