The book Eats, Shoots And Leaves is lying somewhere in my house, but I don't think I'll be reading it anytime soon. I remember going through the introduction, and the author is a self-confessed pedant, who says that the book is for other pedants. That is something I am not, at least when it comes to the use of the English language (should the 'e' be capitalized in 'English'? I guess that shows you my level of expertise). I can understand the frustration at the decline of the language, but I find the level of pedantry that is sometimes employed by grammar Nazis to be, well, annoying. Perhaps the "it's 'it's', not 'its'" style remarks are well-founded (although they do get annoying after a while), but I suppose I fall into the camp that believes that expression of intent is the goal (or rather is the primary goal).

I remember Ms. Truss saying something about cave man getting the point with their grunts, and her belief that language was more than getting your idea across. Although I can see her point, I wonder when exactly pedantry becomes pedantry.