The Cost Of A Rogue Comma?

    • ET
    • Publish Date: Apr 18 2017 11:05AM
    • |
    • Updated Date: Apr 18 2017 11:06AM
The Cost Of A Rogue Comma?

Image: Twitter

The executives of a US-based dairy company stand to lose $10 million because of a missing comma in a legal rule. A court ruled in favour of a group of dairy drivers demanding overtime pay, stating that the absence of an oxford comma allowed room for argument. Here are other instances when punctuation (or the lack of it) mattered
 
Where's the comma?
Disputed statement: “The service and execution throughout the Commonwealth of the criminal and civil process and the judgments of the courts of the States.“

In 2010, the New South Wales (NSW) crime commission issued a subpoena for a Victorian police officer to attend its inquiry. The validity of that subpoena was argued on the basis of whether a crime commission had the power to force someone from another state to attend for the purpose of giving evidence.It all boiled down to the insertion of commas. It was unanimously agreed that the first comma had to be inserted after criminal and civil process. Should the second one be inserted after 'judgments' or 'courts'?
If the comma was inserted after judgments, it would mean that the subpoenas were only for courtrelated matters. If it was inserted after courts, it could be served for non-court-related criminal and civil processes too. A comma was added after courts and the officer had to attend the inquiry.

Misread comma
Disputed statement: “This agreement shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.“

This was a statement from a contract between two Canadian companies, a cable television provider and a telephone company. The former read this statement as both parties being allowed to terminate the successive five-year term by giving a notice before the final 12 months of the previous five-year contract period. Unfortunately, the court found the statement ambiguous . So, when the telephone company read the same statement as both companies being allowed to end the contract at any time by giving a year's notice, the court ruled in its favour.

Misplaced comma
In 1872, the federal government in the US passed a new tariff act. A punctuation error in the law wound up costing the government about $2 million at the time. A previously passed tariff act had specified that “fruit plants, tropical and semitropical for the purpose of propagation or cultivation“ were exempt from import tariff, and the 1872 version was supposed to retain this same exclusion. The problem was that a comma was mysteriously inserted into the phrase, making it “fruit, plants, tropical and semi-tropical for the purpose of propagation or cultivation“. The comma between “fruit“ and “plants“ indicated that fruits were now also on the exempt list.

Two years after this mistake, the government agreed that the tax wouldn't apply to imported fruit, and even refunded the duties that had been paid since 1872. As a result, fruit importers collectively received $2 million back from the government .

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Comments

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

Himanshi Dhawan Saffron Public School

Well, very often, even in the text that we are bound to read in schools lacks punctuation marks especially comma. Such errors can lead to bafflement in the reliability of the text.

Aadrit Banerjee Apeejay School Salt Lake

Hahahaha... really sometimes punctuation marks especially this command creates a lot of confusion and if placed incorrectly then it creates a lot of inconvenience...

Aadrit Banerjee Apeejay School Salt Lake

Hahahaha... really sometimes punctuation marks especially this command creates a lot of confusion and if placed incorrectly then it creates a lot of inconvenience...

Aadrit Banerjee Apeejay School Salt Lake

Hahahaha... really sometimes punctuation marks especially this command creates a lot of confusion and if placed incorrectly then it creates a lot of inconvenience...

Aadrit Banerjee Apeejay School Salt Lake

Hahahaha... really sometimes punctuation marks especially this command creates a lot of confusion and if placed incorrectly then it creates a lot of inconvenience...

Aikya Oruganti Epistemo Global - Vikas Leadership School

comma confusion

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