Of commas and colons

It's February !! So, you cannot wish people a "Happy new year" without getting the stares and the "Pal, it's a month after the 1st of Jan" look. That doesn't stop me from wishing you a "Happy new month" however !

I was reading an excerpt from a book called "Eats, shoots and leaves", a book on punctuation for the sticklers (and the others !!) . For those who know where to place the apostrophes and the dashes, and when to replace the semicolon with the comma, it's an amusing read; and for those don't, it is a revelation.

Sethu rightly pointed out that the titile would take a different meaning if one were to omit the comma. One other interesting peice of information I gathered from the excerpt - The right way to write time, in figures ! ( Wish I could also fit in a "Wright" there ! ) For example, how do you write Seven Thirty in figures? I bet you thought it was 7 : 30. Well, if you did, you are wrong. It's not a colon between the digits; it is a full stop. 7 . 30 it is !! There is also a link to a punctuation test on that page which is rather simple if you paid attention in your English languge class, back in high school.

Here's the link to the page : http://www.eatsshootsandleaves.com/excerpt.html

Before I finish, I have to add a witty verse I picked up at the page:

"A cat has claws at the end of its paws.
A comma's a pause at the end of a clause."