The Art of Punctuation

> But if the meaning is clear, I would ask students, why bother eliminating these mistakes? The answer is because not to do so is to risk offending people who know better, the educated, a small group, to be sure, some would even say an endangered species, but one that tends to be touchy about such matters.

I think you should "follow the rules," not out of fear of offending someone but because following these guidlines results in writing that is easier to understand. Even when the "meaning is clear," it can be made more clear (and have a greater result).

Compare

> Hopefully, the professor will be able to seriously take the work on which I am presently engaged, which is, I believe, rather unique.

with

> I hope the professor will take my unique work seriously.

There's a common argument that the purpose of language is communication, that mistakes don't matter if the desired information is communicated, and that prescriptive rules for punctuation and grammar are merely pedantry.

However, that argument is self-defeating. The purpose of language is obviously communication, yes. Mistakes might not hinder communication in some cases, sure. The rules of grammar have changed throughout history and are somewhat arbitrary, granted.

However, as the ideas one wishes to communicate become more complex, abandoning the greater set of grammatical tools makes ones sentences more difficult to read. I see this all the time in professional environments of all places. I frequently have to reread communications because someone was too lazy to proofread.

And as for language changing through time? It does. But that's not carte blanche for making whatever changes one wishes. Language change has to come about by collective agreement, not by some cowboy who doesn't like grammatical rules.

> “Hopefully, the professor will be able to seriously take the work on which I am presently engaged, which is, I believe, rather unique.” The meaning of the sentence is clear enough, though it contains four mistakes.

I don't mean to brag, but I got 0 of 4 on both the first, initial reading and the second reading. :)

> In 1927 in New Jersey, a man named Salvatore Merra was wrongly executed because of the want of a semicolon in a jury’s sentencing

Here are the actual words that led to his execution:

"In the Merra case the dissenting justices pointed out that the jury's verdict was originally recorded as follows:"

We find the defendant Salvatore Merra guilty of murder in the first degree and the defendant Salvatore Rannelli guilty of murder in the first degree, and recommend life imprisonment at hard labor.

"which was amended by the trial judge to read:"

We find Salvatore Merra guilty of murder in the first degree. We find Salvatore Rannelli guilty of murder in the first degree and recommend life imprisonment.[1][2]

It does seem like an injustice happened here. The jury's verdict as originally recorded is a little ambiguous, but to my mind, the recommendation of life imprisonment would seem to apply to both. Although this doesn't seem like a comma vs semicolon issue so much as a judge taking liberty to change the wording and not clarifying the intention with the jury. The straightforward thing to do during the appeal would've been to find the jurors and ask them what they meant; I guess that wasn't (legally) allowed.

[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/appellate-division-p...

[2] https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3586846/state-v-merra/ [from the Supreme Court of New Jersey]

Unrelevant, but still great:

https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks