Alex Stetsenko

Here is another story that shows how commas are important..

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then takes out a gun and fires it at the other patrons. “Why?” asks the confused, surviving waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
“Well, I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “Look it up”. The waiter turns to the information on pandas in the manual and finds an explanation. “Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like animal, native to China. Eats, shoots, and leaves.”.

The poorly punctuated manual caused all of these problems for the panda and the people in the café. The correct punctuation for the last sentence in the story should not include any commas (simply eats shoots and leaves).

Thanks to Lucy with ESL Podcasts for such a good article.