|
Commas — are
they important?
Some
people don’t see the necessity of commas.
However, a telecommunications company has recently
had a $2 million lesson on why they are so important.
It seems
that, in 2002, a telecommunications company contracted
an infrastructure company to string cable lines across
the Maritimes for a fee of $9.60 a pole. The telecommunications
company believed the deal was for five years, and that
it could be potentially renewed for another five years.
However, the infrastructure company backed out halfway
through the first period, and it was supported by the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
The sentence
that allowed for the cancellation read as follows:
“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.”
Grammarians
agree that when you enclose words between two commas, the
words are not essential and can be omitted without changing
the meaning of the sentence.
Therefore,
the infrastructure company is correct in interpreting the
sentence as “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, unless and
until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by
either party.”
If the
comma had been deleted after the word “terms,” the
contract could not have been broken.
The telecommunications
company is now no longer protected from the rising costs
for stringing the cable, and it is estimated the comma
problem may cost them over $2 million.
This
story, sent to me by a biz tip reader, is a wonderful example
of why punctuation is so important. How much care do you
take with your commas?
Incidentally,
in this example the numbers for the years are written two
ways: five (5) years. This is because it is a sentence
in a legal contract. In standard business writing, you
would never write numbers both ways.
|
