Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Overnutmegged bread sauce.

My contribution to Christmas. Good, huh?

But my mother retaliated with a pre-emptive strike with a copy Jamie's Dinners. Subtle hint? Nah, it can't be. We don't do subtle. Admittedly she must have bought a case of them, as every single relative seems to have been given them.

What else did I get? The bi-annual yet to be bought by me CD (my brother and I have a system: a thoroughly unsentimental, very practical system). Chocolate: no Ferrero Rocher this year, although I haven't yet had the present from the person who has given me it. Books, books and a bookmark (it's a penguin, because apparently I am penguins to my cousin. Which given my mother is convinced that it's her nephew who must have all things penguin, is a bit confusing. All of which pales in comparison to the aunt who must be rueing the day, a few decades ago, when she said that she collects things with chickens on. It's amazing how much tat has a great big cock stuck on it).

The books thing. I've just finished the not-a-present Grapes of Wrath. Very good, and obviously unsettling. Not least because one knows that it must be alright in the end, but has no idea how we got to be where we are. The book is full of hope, optimism and unrelenting kindness, and so feels horrendously depressing.

I've also romped through Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Why romped? Because it was given to my brother, and I wanted to read it before he went back to London, and also before he noticed it was missing (and therefore would be livid that I was reading his brand-new, unread book). And because it's big printing, big margins, small pages, and probably has fewer words in than the average "how to complete your tax form" pamphlet.

And [note the use of a conjunctive to start a paragraph] it's become obvious why that New Yorker piece I mentioned a while had it in for her: the book would make confusing reading for anyone unaware of modern British life (I imagine some of the Manhattanites would be muttering "Rolf Harris? Who the hell is that?"), and the author describes the New Yorker as famously punctilious (or words to that effect, not having a copy to check).

One point which annoyed me was the section on the use of speech marks. She begins it with an example of British versus American, which looks roughly like this:
He said "British".
She said "American."

So I was right. Or was I? Then in the following section in which she explains the rules. And gives no example which would produce the British construct. But she just said that it was the British version, so how can anyone get to that version, following her rules? The only one that gets near it is using a quote in a question, where the quote is not a question. For example:
How often does the Queen say "sod off"?

Yet the American version should read:
How often does the Queen say "sod off?"

Which to me changes the meaning. The first it asks about her majesty's use of the phrase "sod off". The second suggests HM is replying in puzzlement to someone suggesting that she should, and so the question becomes about the number of times it is suggested to her.

Of course, I still have not quite adapted from the version I thought I had only just discovered to be "wrong." As that version seems to imply that this is still part of the "Of course..." sentence. Imagine what might happen is the second sentence began with a name: ... the man is "a god." Jeremy Thompson believes ...

There's something not quite right with the structure of the words, but it still seems confusing, whilst being technically correct.

Scouting for examples, and it's no wonder I'm confused. BBC News has the following selection in one story:

But the UN's relief co-ordinator, Jan Egeland, said it will take another "two or three days" for the relief effort to get into full swing - by which time it may be too late for "tens of thousands of people who would like to have assistance today - or yesterday".

"We are doing very little at the moment," he admitted.

"I believe the frustration will be growing in the days and weeks ahead."
[The bold sections were emphasised by me].

So which is it?

The Indy uses both, apparently working to the rule that a full quoted sentence carries its own punctuation within the speech marks, but a word or phrase is borrowed the punctuation belongs to the rest of the sentence.
Mr Straw ... said he [the PM] was "entitled to some rest".
Mr Blair faced fresh demands to ... return to London to "direct operations".
"I would have thought Mr Blair should be ... coming back to direct operations."

The Guardian seem to use only [punctuation][close speech marks].

The Telegraph for the most part uses the same convention, however it too occasionally uses the reverse when dealing with single words or phrases.

The Times sticks with the punctuation within speech marks model, except for a curious construct I can only attribute to poor editing. (Oddly, most of the articles I sampled on their website go to strenuous efforts to avoid having a paragraph ending with the end of a quotation).

So what have we learnt from this? That one should avoid having a quote at the end of a sentence, and whatever the next sentence may be, that it should preferably start a new paragraph. Clear?

Me writing "quoting him".
Me writing about him, and here's his quote "I am frequently quoted."
"Simple and snappy," said Mr Soundbite.
"Occasionally I find that if I should happen to waffle on long enough, and this is only rare circumstances, mind you, that the editor quoting me may give up entirely, and, rather be faced with a mass of ellipses, would prefer to give me a full paragraph just to myself."

[I mean no offence by the selection of articles which I have used. There merely happen to be the most prominent at the time of writing. I could have used writing about the cricket, but it was less likely to feature quotes. Incidentally, the Times has really taken this whole tabloid business much too seriously haven't they? I saw a copy yesterday, and the content and layout seem as if they are performing the groundwork for the invasion of red ink, thunderous headlines and exclamation marks].

Moving on, or reverting perhaps, to Eats, Shoots and Leaves. The use of semi-colons and colons. The author is a bit too rude about the notion that punctuation comes in a graduated scale ascending thus: ,;:.!

Why do I say a bit too rude? Because I have never been very sure on the use of the semicolons and colons, and it was about the only thing which I thought I was getting right. She seems to think the ruling is based on whether a conjunctive (e.g. and, then) could be used in place, whether the author intends juxtaposition or clarification, whether it is introducing speech or a quotation, whether it is part of a list containing sub-clauses, and so on (meaning I cannot remember the rest).

Colon - For use when the following statement is thematically linked. And this is where I realise I am not confident enough to provide my own illustration, and so turn to books in search of an example. All of which means I have just spent a large amount of time trying to find a colon in many great works of literature, and the only one I can find is near the beginning of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, whereupon he uses two within the same sentence. Confounded man.

Anyway, the supposed structure is meant to run [Statement]: [qualifier], in which both could probably stand as independent, albeit thematically linked, statements. So an example might be:
He had a very religious approach to housework: Christmas, Easter, that sort of thing.
It was a dark and stormy night: the campfire lay sodden and dark.

[As you may have noticed, another use of the colon is to precede speech marks or examples, although other features of the text can also illustrate this].

I wonder if there is anything significant in my finding more colons with a few pages of a Dick Francis than in half a shelf of classic literature? Admittedly, many of the other books make frequent use of dashes where other punctuation might be appropriate - could it be that the greatest writers are (or were, mostly) as equally unsure of the usage of the punctuation marks as the rest of us?

Semicolons are a bit easier, and a bit more frequent. They pop up in lists with sub-clauses, between statements where juxtaposition occurs, or merely to qualify the former (surely that should be a full colon task?) and often wherever the writer may wish them. Some examples are:

The cast were: Leonato, Governor of Messina; Antonia, his sister; Hero, daughter of Leonato; Beatrice, niece of Leonato; Margaret, handmaiden to Hero; Ursula, nurse to Hero...
The clock struck one; the cow jumped over the moon; the owl and the pussycat sailed away in a beautiful pea green boat.

Warning: should you try to look up grammatical guides on things such as semi-colon use, do check the guide actually allows use of all punctuation marks. I've just found one belonging to an American university. It recommends using semicolons in a situation for which most other resources would suggest using a colon, simply because in no situation does it recommend using a colon.

[Muffled swearing, which is quite surprising considering this computer has no microphone (that I know of). I have been finding too many contradictory sources on the use of colons versus semicolons, and now can remember neither quite right].

Giving up.
Anyhoo,