Panda's Punctuation Predicament

I am one of those people who takes the English language quite seriously. By this I mean that I am quite particular about speaking and writing good(i.e. correct) English. And of late, I find that this quality is being scorned at by many. This, I presume is because people think that English is after all a 'second language' for many of us and that we should not be too passionate or pushy about it. Whichever way people look at it, I believe it is their choice. After all, we live in a democratic country!

I, however, happened to lay my hands on this book by Lynne Truss named 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves'. It is a book on 'The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation'. I was quite excited by the story of the panda that was on the back cover of this book. It 'hit the nail right on the head' about how important punctuation is to the English language. I liked it so much that I am just reproducing it here for all of you who haven't read the book or heard the story yet.

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why?" asks a confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up".
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Now, for those of you who understood the story, I guess I don't have to say more. For the rest, you should buy a copy of the book and read it. Period.

P.S. Story as published in the book 'Eats, shoots and leaves' by Lynne Truss