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Topic: Grammarian's Scheudenfreude: The $2-Million Comma
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Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019
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posted 07 August 2006 11:47 AM
Comma Chameleon quote: 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.
From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003
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Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019
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posted 07 August 2006 01:34 PM
You misunderstand my argument for one of intent rather than of grammar. Of course the interpretation of Rogers is the one both parties originally intended (or more accurately, Aliant was happy to let Rogers think it was, knowing they could probably end the contract whenever they felt it was profitable to do so,) but the punctuation allows them to get away with breaking the terms. That's why the story is funny, and why it's a story at all. For some reason, you're playing the straight man at a funny man party.Anyway, here's another costly punctuation error from the annals of history (Source Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: quote: The Transvaal was a Boer republic at the time, and it was believed that the British and other settlers around Johannesburg (who were denied civil rights) would rise up if Jameson invaded. But unfortunately, when the settlers sent their telegraphic invitation to Jameson, it included a tragic ambiguity: It is under these circumstances that we feel constrained to call upon you to come to our aid should a disturbance arise here the circumstances are so extreme that we cannot but believe that you and the men under you will not fail to come to the rescue of people who are so situated.
Alas, a period was inserted after "aid" (Come at once, Jameson!) rather than after "here" (Come when you're needed! We'll let you know!) and as a result, Jameson launched his disastrous raid, it ended badly, no one came to help him, and he started the second Boer War. Pity. [ 07 August 2006: Message edited by: Catchfire ]
From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 07 August 2006 02:10 PM
I don't misunderstand your grammatical argument at all. I agree that the cancellation clause applies to both the first five year term and any subsequent five year terms.But how then does the cancellation clause operate? That's the real issue here. Could the agreement be cancelled, say, 18 months after it was signed, if one party gave a year's written notice to that effect after the first six months? That's what Aliant said, but I think that's ignoring the real meaning of the words - specifically the refernce to five-year terms. The only reason to have five-year renewable terms in an agreement is to have the agreement's life guaranteed for a period of five years, at the end of which it may terminate or be renewed. It's just like a five-year term in a mortgage or a lease; the idea is that the agreement will subsist for at least five years, after which it may be renewed for five more years, or terminated. Leases and mortgages may allow for termination before the expiry of a "term" (be it a 5-year, 3-year, one-year term, or whatever), but in that case it is recognized as being an exception to the "term" concept, and there is usually some kind of penalty attached to such early termination. In the normal course it is anticipated that the life of the agreement will be measured in "terms" of a stated length. Otherwise, as I have said repeatedly, you might as well just say the agreement can be terminated at any time, and do away with the idea of a term of years altogether.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019
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posted 08 August 2006 12:34 PM
Well, rasmus, if legal writing wasn't already notorious for its "pleonasm," then you might have a case. But it is, and you don't. If redundancy rendered the rules of grammar impotent, than we should scarcely have them in the first place. If a double negative, for example, showed up in a legal document, it wouldn't be excused for its "otioseness" but would instead conform to the rules laid out in Strunk & White.As Lynne Truss points out in Eats, Shoots and Leaves, "lawyers eschew the comma as far as possible, regarding it as a troublemaker," and then she remarks of "the semantic havoc they create when either wrongly inserted. . .or carelessley omitted." This is not an uncommon problem, and as such, the lawyers should have known better--half of them did. The courts are gleefully and spitefully correct.
From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003
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Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019
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posted 08 August 2006 01:14 PM
Surely, that is true. It wouldn't be funny if, say, the courts dispossessed a poor farmer of his centuries-old family farm because the mortgage left out a critical full stop. And, to be honest, I doubt the Canadiam legal system would have ruled the way they did, if, as you said, it wasn't Rogers. Besides, it wasn't exactly "the courts" that made this ruling, was it? It was the CRTC and their regulators. Perhaps they have a different sort of system where "intent" isn't quite so important.I should also mention that the writing of Canadian Supreme Court rulings--a far-cry from their lesser colleagues who scavange in real estate offices--is among the best I've seen for accuracy and clarity.
From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 19 October 2006 12:42 PM
Update quote: Rogers, which lost a debate this summer over the placement of a comma in a contract to lease thousands of poles in New Brunswick, is now turning to the French language to make its case.Federal regulators ruled in July that a single comma in a 14-page contract meant the deal could be scrapped by Aliant, potentially resulting in as much as $2.13-million in extra costs for Rogers. After parsing the wording, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission determined the contract spelled out in plain English that Aliant could exit the deal. Au contraire, Rogers' lawyers say. The company has spent the past two months hunting down a French version of the same contract. And because that document doesn't use the same punctuation, the decision should be overturned, Rogers says. The matter is now heading back to the CRTC, pitting the country's two official languages against each other. "Because we're an officially bilingual country, documents like this have a French version and an English version -- and both are equally valid," said Ken Englehart, Rogers' vice-president of regulatory affairs. "It's kind of one of the advantages of having two official languages." .... Rogers has since marshalled a number of grammatical and legal sources to argue that the comma doesn't matter. But the French contract and the slightly different wording in that document form the bulk of the company's appeal. The case of the tele-comma, as it has been dubbed in legal circles, has drawn widespread attention. Several law schools in Canada and the U.S. have flagged the dispute as a cautionary tale about the importance of proper grammar in law.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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