I’ve admitted in the past to being a sort of grammar fanatic (you may not get that from my posts though). I was thrilled by this Globe and Mail article today, ‘A basic rule of punctation’. For those of you who can’t get the story or aren’t interested in reading it, it can be summed up in the next few sentences. Rogers enteredinto a contract with Aliant to use their utility poles. Due to the placing of a comma, the contract is not early as lucrative as Rogers’ perceived it to be and will be out oodles of money.

I love it! Not one big business cheating another by use of grammar (which is how sme see the whole thing), but rather I love that a simple comma can hold such an important place. The clause of trouble is…

“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.””

See, the combo of the two commas means that technically, the middle section (“and therefore… terms”) could be taken out of the sentence and it would not affect the overall meaning of the sentence - it’s just adding extra info. So that means the sentence could read…

“The agreement “shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.””

And that means Aliant has every right to do what they’re doing. Rogers (or their lawyers) made the mistake of overlooking the second comma!