Thursday, January 9, 2014

Punctuation?

"They're most likely coming to hurt or kill you and I got it"

Why bother with pesky punctuation marks? There's no chance this sentence could be interpreted any other way than exactly how the writer meant it:

"They're most likely coming to hurt or kill you, and I got it."

Right? 

WRONG! The writer has not limited himself to punctuation issues in this sentence. What he really means is:

"They're most likely coming to hurt or kill you and I. Got it?"

But of course this is wrong as well. So the sentence should really say:

"They're most likely coming to hurt or kill you and me. Got it?"

And even this is sticky and somewhat convoluted. 

The moral? Use punctuation or your editors won't know what the hell you're trying to say. Also, be a better writer. 

No comments:

Post a Comment