Addenda and Errata comments on a weird and unhappy phenomenon in American speech and writing patterns. To quote a recent and hilarious Bob Newhart video circulating on the web: "Stop it!"

Christa Walker, WSC student sent this. It's from July '06 but my students should take note:

The $2-million comma

GRANT ROBERTSON

Toronto Globe and Mail
July 8, 2006

It could be the most costly piece of punctuation in Canada.

A grammatical blunder may force Rogers Communications Inc. to pay an extra $2.13-million to use utility poles in the Maritimes after the placement of a comma in a contract permitted the deal's cancellation.

The controversial comma sent lawyers and telecommunications regulators scrambling for their English textbooks in a bitter 18-month dispute that serves as an expensive reminder of the importance of punctuation.

Rogers thought it had a five-year deal with Aliant Inc. to string Rogers’ cable lines across thousands of utility poles in the Maritimes for an annual fee of $9.60 per pole. But early last year, Rogers was informed that the contract was being cancelled and the rates were going up. Impossible, Rogers thought, since 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 construction of a single sentence in the 14-page contract allowed the entire deal to be scrapped with only one-year’s notice, the company argued.

Language buffs take note — Page 7 of the contract states: 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’ intent in 2002 was to lock into a long-term deal of at least five years. But when regulators with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) parsed the wording, they reached another conclusion.

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

Had it not been there, the right to cancel wouldn’t have applied to the first five years of the contract and Rogers would be protected from the higher rates it now faces.

“Based on the rules of punctuation,” the comma in question “allows for the termination of the [contract] at any time, without cause, upon one-year’s written notice,” the regulator said.

Rogers was dumbfounded. The company said it never would have signed a contract to use roughly 91,000 utility poles that could be cancelled on such short notice. Its lawyers tried in vain to argue the intent of the deal trumped the significance of a comma. “This is clearly not what the parties intended,” Rogers said in a letter to the CRTC.

But the CRTC disagreed. And the consequences are significant.

The contract would have shielded Rogers from rate increases that will see its costs jump as high as $28.05 per pole. Instead, the company will likely end up paying about $2.13-million more than expected, based on rough calculations.

Despite the victory, Aliant won’t reap the bulk of the proceeds. The poles are mostly owned by Fredericton-based utility NB Power, which contracted out the administration of the business to Aliant at the time the contract was signed.

Neither Rogers nor Aliant could be reached for comment on the ruling. In one of several letters to the CRTC, Aliant called the matter “a basic rule of punctuation,” taking a swipe at Rogers’ assertion that the comma could be ignored.

“This is a classic case of where the placement of a comma has great importance,” Aliant said.

 

The post on the pronounciation of "asterisk" prompted this post from the HB's foreign correspondent, Steve Zrimic (from Grand Rapids):

***

As someone known to correct his wife’s counter-top notes, your petty linguistic exactitudes are very much appreciated. Some I love pointing out are also:

1) Even though the Oxford experts say, “It really doesn't matter: it's a matter of personal taste. Orientated is currently preferred use in general British use. Oriented is prevalent in technical use, and in the US, …it’s not “orientated” but oriented.

2) “ekcetera.”

3) “flustrated.”

4) “criteria” is the plural form, and “criterion” is the singular.

5) Singular pronouns should be used in conjunction with singular antecedents. It is not proper to say, “A person cannot help their birth.” Rather, “A person cannot help his birth.” If you find this politically incorrect then “he or she” is appropriate, but have a care for the reader; the repeated use of “or” is tiresome. If your text requires the repeated use of the pronoun/antecedent construction as in a job description and If the use of the masculine pronoun is a problem, try alternating between “he” and “she.”

6) When you address someone you must use a comma, no matter where the name falls in a sentence: “Scott, you sure are bald.” “You sure are bald, Scott.” “Like I said, Scott, you sure are bald.”

Editor's Note: What? He couldn't think of any other quality to mention? Well, on reflection, perhaps this one is best.

As Barry Bonds gets closer to the record, the more often, and righteously, the word is used but it's also being mangled. From the Oxford American Dictionary:

a symbol (*) used to mark printed or written text, typically as a reference to an annotation or to stand for omitted matter. USAGE Avoid pronouncing this word |ˈastəˌriks|or |ˈastəˌrik|, as many regard such pronunciations as uneducated.

Amen. It's not that difficult. The word ends with -isk not -riks.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest but don't ask me about "aks."

The contemporary use of the word "community" has troubled me for some time. I couldn't put my finger on it until today. It came to me during our drive across the the vast wasteland that is Nevada.

Folk routinely speak about the "online" community or the "this community" or the "that community" when what they really mean is "this faction" or "that interest group." They don't mean "community at all. The emphasis on this use of "community" to mean "faction" or "interest group" is not on "community" at all but upon what distinguishes one set of interests from another. In philosophical terms the emphasis in this use of "community" is upon the many or the particular, not the one or unity.

More later.