Lynne Truss (born 31 May 1955) is an English author, journalist, novelist, and radio broadcaster and

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

. She is arguably best known for her championing of correctness and aesthetics in the English language, which is the subject of her popular and widely discussed 2003 book, '' Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation''. The book was inspired by a

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's ...

show about punctuation, ''Cutting a Dash'', which she presented. Besides her promotion of

linguistic prescription Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes infor ...

and commentary on English grammar, Truss has written many radio plays, both

comedic Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term ...

and

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

tic. She has also written grammar guides for children and novels.

Early life

Truss was born on 31 May 1955 in

Kingston upon Thames Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable as ...

. She was educated at the Tiffin Girls' School; and

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, where she was awarded a

first-class degree The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variat ...

in English Language and Literature.

Career

Truss began her media career as a literary editor. She then spent six years as a television critic for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'', before moving into

sports journalism Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of t ...

for the same newspaper. She spent four years in the latter field, and in 2009 wrote a book about her experiences with it, ''Get Her Off the Pitch: How Sport Took Over My Life''.

Politics

In August 2014, Truss was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.

Works

Novels

* ''With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed'' – Hamish Hamilton (1994) ; Penguin (1995) ; Profile Books (2004) * ''Tennyson's Gift'' – Hamish Hamilton (1996) ; Penguin (1997) ; Profile Books (2004) * '' Going Loco'' – Review (Hodder Headline) (1999) ; Profile Books (2004) * ''Cat Out of Hell'' – Hammer (2014) * ''The Lunar Cats'' (2017) * ''A Shot in the Dark (A Constable Twitten Mystery)'' – Raven Books (2018) * ''The Man That Got Away: A Constable Twitten Mystery'' (2019) * ''Murder by Milk Bottle (A Constable Twitten Mystery)'' (2020) * ''Psycho by the Sea (A Constable Twitten Mystery)'' (2021)

Non-fiction

* ''Making the Cat Laugh: One Woman's Journal of Single Life on the Margins'' (1995) * ''Tennyson and his Circle'' (1999) * '' Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation'' (2003) * ''Glued to the Goggle Box: 50 Years of British TV with Freeze-Frames'' (2003) – with John Minnion * ''Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life'' (2005) * ''Get Her Off the Pitch: How Sport Took Over My Life'' (2009)

Children's books

* ''The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without Apostrophes!'' (2007) * ''Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts'' (2008)

Collections and published scripts

* ''A Certain Age: Twelve Monologues From the Classic Radio Series'' – Profile Books (2007) * ''Giving Up the Ghost'' – BBC Radio 4 (2008)

Selected radio series

* ''

Acropolis Now ''Acropolis Now'' was an Australian television sitcom set in a fictional Greek cafe, called the "Acropolis Cafe" in Melbourne that ran for 63 episodes broadcast from 9 August 1989 to 4 November 1992 on the Seven Network. It was created by Nic ...

'' – set in

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...

(2000–2002) * ''A Certain Age'' (BBC Audio Collection, two vols.) – BBC Audiobooks (2005, 2007) , * ''

Inspector Steine ''Inspector Steine'' is a radio comedy drama series written by Lynne Truss and produced by Sweet Talk for BBC Radio 4. The producer is Karen Rose and music is by Anthony May. Set in a police station in Brighton in the 1950s, it tells the story ...

'' – set in a 1950s English

police station A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, a ...

(2007–2013) * ''Gossip from the Garden Pond'' (2014) * ''Rumblings from the Rafters'' (2016) This list excludes standalone plays.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Truss, Lynne 1955 births Living people English journalists English non-fiction writers English dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English novelists 21st-century English novelists English radio writers Women radio writers People from Kingston upon Thames Alumni of University College London Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Writers of style guides People educated at the Tiffin Girls' School