»Lets eat Grandma« or »Lets eat, Grandma«? It depends on whether you want to actually eat your grandmother or you want to say to her that you’re going to eat.
»Who cares?«
Well, I for one care about grammar, punctuation,1 and language in general. By being consistent and with good grammar, you’ll end up in a lot2 fewer nasty places.
Let us start with why capitalisation is so important. Everybody should be aware of the (subtle) difference between the two following sentences: »I helped my uncle Jack off a horse« and »I helped my uncle jack off a horse«3.
A thing I see often on different pages on-line (okay, I’m going to be honest, it’s Reddit) is people having problems with »would’ve« which they some times write as »would of«, when it is of course an abbreviation of »would have«. I believe that it is solely because of the pronunciation, that people gets it wrong.
One myth goes that an English teacher once wrote: »Woman without her man is nothing« on a blackboard and asked the students to punctuate it correctly. Supposedly all the males gave back this version: »Woman, without her man, is nothing« whilst all the females gave back this one: »Woman: without her, man is nothing«. Note that only the punctuation is different, yet we get two very different meanings.
The last example is my new favourite. It was posted on Reddit a couple of weeks ago and goes like this: »I never said she stole my money«. What does that sentence even mean? Well, that very much depends on what you make the main subject in the sentence. Try saying out loud the below seven sentences, but make the bold word the main subject.
I never said she stole my money.
I never said she stole my money.
I never said she stole my money.
I never said she stole my money.
I never said she stole my money.
I never said she stole my money.
I never said she stole my money.
It’s almost like magic. A seven word sentence that can mean seven different things! That is amazing.
1 This is the Oxford comma. With it, you can have sentences like: »We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin«, meaning that we invited multiple strippers, JFK, and Stalin, whilst without it: »We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin« we actually mean that we invited the strippers, who happens to be JFK and Stalin.
2 Not “Alot”, which is a town in India
3 Don’t help your uncle with that kind of behaviour!