Richard Lederer at Vocabula Review takes issue with those who think punctuation isn't that important. Link (subscribers only). Excerpt:
Like it or not, writing well – not artistically, not ornately, not floridly, but just competently – really is the difference between being largely able to define your own life and having much of your life defined for you. Writing is, in a word, power. And trying to write a Post-it note – much less anything of any substance – without understanding punctuation is like trying to build a house without nails: it'll look awful, and no one will want to come near it.
That passage seems a little extreme to us, though we agree that bad writing isn't condemned nearly as harshly as it ought to be, probably for the same reason moral sins aren't condemned: no one wants to look too hard into his own heart (or hand).
Anyway, Lederer goes on to provide a few funny examples of what bad punctuation can do to passages:
Punctuation can make an enormous difference in meaning. Which dog has the upper paw?
A clever dog knows its master.
A clever dog knows it's master.
The second sentence, of course. Why do so many people insert a squiggle before the s in the possessive its?
Which speaker beheld a monster?
I saw a man eating lobster.
I saw a man-eating lobster.
Note the effect of the missing apostrophe in this sentence:
The butler stood in the doorway and called the guests names.
. . .
Note the startling result of the absence of hyphens in this headline:
FATHER TO BE STABBED TO DEATH IN STREET.
Behold the effect of the missing serial comma (the one that should go before the and) in this book dedication:
To my parents, the Pope and Mother Teresa.
