I just read this in my Journalism text book:

'The teacher wrote this on the board:

Only she hit him in the eye.

She then told them to write the sentence as many times as they could changing the placement of only.

She only hit him in the eye
She hit only him in the eye.
She hit him only in the eye.
She hit him in only the eye.
She hit him in the only eye.
She hit him in the eye only.

The lesson is about effective writing. Basically word and punctation placement. There is another example (to long to type) where just the punctuation was changed, which made the story completely different.

One my actual teacher showed us was.

Tom's $10.5 million dollars is to be split evenly between Jill, Bob, Kim and Pat.

That would mean Jill 1/3, Bob 1/3, Kim and Pat 1/3.

Now if it said..

Tom's $10.5 million dollars is to be split evenly between Jill, Bob, Kim, and Pat.
Than its Jill 1/4, Bob 1/4, Kim 1/4, and Pat 1/4.

 

why? both sentences are the same?

 

:slap: comma placement is different

 

No it wouldn't make sense unless it implied Kim and Pat were a single unit (married or a couple).

So in that case it would have to be worded as "and Kim and Pat" which makes them a singular entity so it gets divided to thirds. If you say "Kim, and Pat" it divides it into quarters as they are designated seperate entities.

 

I caught that too.

 

i didn't understand it either. But supposly this is a big problem on peoples wills.

i think it makes sense on the comma placement.

 

if you have an attorney who sucks at english write your will, your problems are much bigger than 1/3,1/3,1/3 shared vs 1/4x4 :chuckles:

 

that's what i think too. seems like most people now, dont put that last comma before and

 

when are you graduating from 3rd grade?

 

in may! here i come 4th grade!