If..Else Log

The world’s costliest comma

Remember kids; punctuation is important.

"Rogers thought… its contract was iron-clad until the spring of 2007 and could potentially be renewed for another five years. Armed with the rules of grammar and punctuation, Aliant disagreed[…]

The validity of the contract and the millions of dollars at stake all came down to one point — the second comma in the sentence."

There is something to be said for clarity in language use; I suspect that the lawyers for Rogers Communication may soon find themselves recepients of Eats shoots and leaves this Christmas.

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2 Responses to “The world’s costliest comma”

  1. Gravatar Steven Campbell August 8th, 2006 9:07 pm

    Eats shoots and leaves is a great book. There was one thing I couldn’t stand - the commas after dialog came after the quotations, and not before:
    The waiter said, “Hello”, and then left.

    I can’t stand that. Drove me crazy. I think it is just how the English do it, versus how the Americans do it.

  2. Gravatar Phu August 8th, 2006 9:34 pm

    “the commas after dialog came after the quotations, and not before […] Drove me crazy. I think it is just how the English do it, versus how the Americans do it.”

    Really? That is the way it is taught and used in England and the way that feels both natural and sensible to me. In fact, I wasn’t aware that it would be done any other way.