A couple of months ago we wrote about the serial comma — the last comma in a list — and showed how its presence could clarify the meaning of an otherwise ambiguous sentence. In a broader sense, clarity is the purpose of all punctuation. When we read a page of text, punctuation sets the pace, identifies asides, and eases the reader’s path towards an understanding of the writer’s intents.

There’s no doubt that the placement of various punctuation marks can change the meaning of a sentence. Here’s an example of the impact of a misplaced comma, in a story that some purport to be true, but which the good folks at Snopes.com demonstrate to be apocryphal.

A woman touring Europe cabled her husband the following message: “Have found a wonderful bracelet. Price seventy-five thousand dollars. May I buy it?”

Her husband immediately responded with the message: “No, price too high.”

However, the telegraph operator missed the one small detail in his transmission – the signal for a comma after the word “No.”

She received the following reply: “No price too high.”

Elated by the good news, she bought the bracelet. When she returned to the U.S. and showed the new bracelet to her shocked husband, he filed a lawsuit against the telegraph company – and won!

Punctuation can also say something about the person using it. Again, the real-world source of this story, if it ever existed, has been lost in the mists of time. That doesn’t diminish the power of its message in the slightest.

An English professor wrote the words “A woman without her man is nothing” on the blackboard, and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All of the males wrote: “A woman, without her man, is nothing.”

All of the females wrote “A woman: without her, man is nothing.”

The uniform split is, of course, too good to be true, but that’s not the point. The point is that punctuation has the power to change the meaning of a sentence. Those two sentences contain the same words, in the same order, but their meanings are completely different.

Apocryphal: Pertaining to a widely-circulated story of doubtful authenticity. From the Ancient Greek apocruphos (hidden, obscure) via the Latin apocryphus (not approved for public reading).