"A woman without her man is nothing."
Huh? Not exactly!
This example of what a little colon and comma can do has made the rounds on the internet for a while now. Never mind, it hasn't seen the light of day here, so -
As the story goes, a professor told his class to correctly punctuate the sentence.
The males in the classroom wrote:With just a simple change in punctuation, the entire meaning of the sentence was changed in an instant.
“A woman, without her man, is nothing.”
The women in the class wrote:
“A woman: without her, man is nothing.”
Unless either of them is gay, which would leave both of them diminished and wasting their time no matter how many colons or commas are used.
ReplyDeleteA Casual Reader ~ Just so! I wonder what a gay student, of either gender would have written? Or the couple you envisaged, who were mis-matched. Probably something along the lines of: "Take your flippin' commas and colons and stick 'em where the sun don't shine!" ;-)
ReplyDeleteAh. Punctuation. Where would we be without it? In a message on a cell phone probably.
ReplyDeleteanyjazz ~ Exactly! Or tweeting in Twitterland.
ReplyDeleteI've always preferred this version:
ReplyDeleteA woman without; her man is nothing.
XO
WWW
Wisewebwoman ~ That's a subtle one, WWW - sounds a tad Shakespearean. :)
ReplyDelete