McNutt Against the Music

I’d hardly consider myself a grammar Nazi – in fact, already in my short time at Dalhousie I’ve run into a few problems where I miss a mistake that I should have caught – but I still pride myself on being an above-average editor. When I was in university, I used to explain to people that the difference between a ‘B’ and an ‘A’ was all in the editing, and now that I’m in the working world I suppose such a principle still rings true. With the exception of the creative realm – where sometimes I find that editing can suck the life out of something – pretty much all of the writing I do relies heavily on editing, so much so that often a product emerges that’s radically altered from my first draft.

Still, I do have a tendency to not edit as well as I should, which has got me in trouble on a couple of occasions. Sometimes it’s a lack of time, but more often than not it’s just the fact that I’m so numb to what I’m writing that I see what’s supposed to be there instead of what actually is. I bring this up in relation to a Globe and Mail story about a deal between Rogers and Aliant that the latter was able to void entirely based on a misplaced comma:

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. 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.”

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.

Suddenly, I don’t feel so bad that about a typo or two on a press release – at least I’ve never cost a company $2 million. Someone’s getting fired for that one.