Famous Commas

The commas is said to be the greatest villain among the punctuation marks. Here are some stories connected with the comma:

Fatal Comma:

Czarina Marina Fyodorovna of Russia once saved the life of a man by changing the place of single comma (,) in a warrant singed by her husband, Czar Alexander III, which forced a person to leave his own place and suffer imprisonment in Siberia. At the bottom of the warrant the za5r had written:

“Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia.” The Czarina (Queen) changed the punctuation so that her husband’s orders or direction read: “Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia .” The man was freed 8by granting pardon.

Million – dollar Comma:

The Government of United States lost large sum of money through the slip of a comma. In the Tariff Act passed on 6^th June, 1872, a list of duty-free items included: “Fruit plants, tropical and semitropical.” A government clerk by mistake changed the line to read: Fruit, plants tropical and semi tropical.”   Importers successfully maintained that the4 passage, as written, freed all tropical and semitropical plants and fruit from payment of duty fees. This cost the United States government a large sum of money until the passage was corrected.