Archive for August 9th, 2006

Aug 09 2006

Armed with the rules of grammar and punctuation

Published by Fence under Music, Pointless, Shiny

Sometimes you find the bestest[1] things on the interweb.

You know when you correct[2] your younger siblings’ pronunciation or spelling or accent[3] And they moan about how “sure you knew what I totally meant like dude”[4] Well now you can feel totally justified, and you can go further and correct their punctuation. After all, one day it might save them thousands of euros/dollars/pounds/rands[5] Don’t belive me? Well, I was reading Neil Gaiman’s blog when[6] I spotted the story. Seems some Canadian company(Rogers) drew up a contract with another company(Aliant). A multi-millian dollar contract. Only they added an extra comma which meant that a crucial line didn’t mean what they thought it would mean:

[the agreement] shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.

Rogers thought that meant that the agreement would last five years, and only after that could it be terminated by the one year notice. But that isn’t what the sentence means. If I remember my rules of punctuation, two commas like that create a subordinate clause, which can be removed to read the main point of the sentence. So it’d read:
“[the agreement] shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.” or basically that only one years notice is required to terminate the agreement, at any time.

Doesn’t that just make you smile, and wonder will all contracts now have to suffer the scrutiny of the punctuation police as well as the legal teams?

I’ve been memed, again. This time by Nome, and it is a music meme. Post your top ten[7] artists, the first song you heard by them, the one that made you fall in love with them, and your current favorite.

  1. Ben Christophers[8] - Beautiful Demon which I got free with an issue of Uncut magazine. Back when I used to buy it. And I think that is still my favourite of his songs.
  2. Declan O’Rourke - Sara (last night in a dream) which NM sent me. My fav by him now is probably Marrying the Sea
  3. Dead Can Dance - I can’t remember what the first song I loved by them was. And I don’t know if I have a favourite either.
  4. Sinead O’Connor - I don’t really like her personality, or at least the way she comes across in the media. But she has a fantastic voice. The first song by her that I can remember hearing and loving was, of course, Nothing Compare 2 You. That is still a great song, wonderful video too. But my favourite at the moment is her version of Oro Se Do Bheatha Bhaile
  5. Martha Wainwright - Again, I’m not sure what my first fav was. And there are quite a few of hers that I love; Bring Back My Heart with Rufus Wainwright, Dis, quand reviendras-tu?, Wither Must I Wander, These Flowers and I’ll stop now otherwise I’ll end up listing all the tracks.

Linknotes:
  1. yes indeedy, the very bestest ↩
  2. tease, insult, whatever, its all good ↩
  3. maybe you just frown at them, or raise your eyes to heaven. I like to be pro-active ↩
  4. this is not an actual exmple, because de brudders talk can be so cat like, that nown’d undershtand it dj’know ↩
  5. delete or insert currency as apropriate ↩
  6. isn’t the cover to Fragile Things lovely? ↩
  7. I’m only doing five mind ↩
  8. oh yeah, these are listed in no particular order ↩
Tags: commas are important, grammar, language, meme

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