When Bad English Rules
As I was browsing through one of my regular public speaking sites, I found a post that highlighted some of the actual newspaper headlines.
Most were excruciatingly funny, some ludicrious to say the least. But all points to one lesson: double check and triple check what you are going to say before you even say it.. One short of a comma may create quite a misunderstanding for example “Two sisters reunited after 18 years at checkout counter.” Without the comma, we would think that the sisters have been stuck at the checkout counter for 18 years which we all know is ridiculous. In writing, you would want to put a comma between “years” and “at” to indicate that they reunited at the checkout counter. In speaking, you would use a short pause to represent the comma. However, I would rather you do this instead: “After 18 years, the two sisters finally reunited at the checkout counter.” Much clearer, don’t you think? End of lesson.
