How do you put a price on grammar?
A fiver for a comma?
A tenner for a full stop?
250k for an apostrophe?
A disgruntled real estate agent was taken to court by his former employer in 2021 for defamation.
More precisely, he was taken to court because he failed to add an apostrophe in his Facebook post.
That one linguistic oversight could set him back a cool quarter of a million dollars.😮 Here is the (potentially) pricey language mistake in context:
selling multi million $ (sic) homes in Pearl Beach but can’t pay his employees superannuation
So what’s all the fuss about?
The defendant meant to complain about his personal situation, but the lack of apostrophe could indicate that the company doesn’t pay *any* of their employees.
What he meant:
employee’s superannuation
What he said:
employees superannuation
I bet he wishes he had dusted off his grammar books or asked someone to give his post a quick once over.
Quick refresher for those of you who are still perplexed:
An apostrophe after the name but before the ‘s’ indicates a singular (the agent’s legal bill — one agent), whereas an apostrophe after the ‘s’ indicates a plural (the agents’ bill — several agents).
So next time a company laughs off the idea of investing in good quality writing, show them this article!
If you’re worried about getting sued for a misplaced comma or unnecessary question mark, reach out and let’s chat!
(Definitely not lets’ chat)
Click here for the original story