Making Sense of a Sentence

Punctuation matters. The comma is a small thing, and the rules for its use are both confusing and inconsistent. And yet, they can do so much to clarify a thought and enhance communication.

Being a newspaper junkie, when I travel I always buy and closely read the local papers. So, while I was enjoying my morning coffee on the deck overlooking the blue/gray Pacific this morning, my eyes came to a sudden stop upon reading: “An appeals court blocked a supervised visit between a woman convicted of killing her husband and their children.” This quote was attributed to (or blamed on) the Associated Press. I wonder if it was just ripped from the web (no more teletypes, I fear) or did someone edit it?

In plain un-punctuated language, she had been convicted of murdering both her husband and their children. Visits, whether supervised or not, seem problematic. However, since I also read The Daily News, I know that she “only” killed her husband and is, after five grueling months in custody, free, seeking visitation with, and ultimately custody of, their children.

Newspapers, if they are to survive, cannot be mere clipping services and aggregators. They need real people with understanding of facts, content, context and even grammar. I am confident our own skilled editor would have rendered the grammatically ambiguous sentence as: An appeals court blocked a supervised visit between a woman, convicted of killing her husband, and their children.” The sentence, even with commas, doesn’t make perfect sense and should be re-written. However, it makes more sense than her sentence of five months for blasting her sleeping hubby with a shotgun.