Complex Numbers

Grammar Police

I have mixed feelings about this one.

This Is Why; You Should Always Properly—Punctuate Your Social Media Posts’  
An incorrectly punctuated Facebook post has brought on a potentially high-priced defamation suit.

Mixed, because on one side, I want to incentivize proper grammar, spelling and punctuation; on the other, I don't think the Grammar Police should use their power to screw the little people.

An Australian judge may make an example of sloppy punctuation, to the tune of over $117,000 USD in legal fees.

This article is from back in October, so it may have been settled by now, one way or the other, but that's irrelevant to the larger discussion. Also, it wasn't punctuation that was at issue.

Several outlets have reported that real estate agent Anthony Zadravic is now being sued for defamation for typing “employees” rather than “employee’s” in a Facebook post last year.

The original quote:

“Oh Stuart Gan!! Selling multi million $ homes in Pearl Beach but can’t pay his employees superannuation,” meaning an employer-subsidized pension fund. “Shame on you Stuart!!! 2 yrs and still waiting!!!”

There are, of course, several other problems with this post: there should be a comma after 'Oh.' Multi-million should be hyphenated. The $ should be written out as 'dollar.' There's another comma missing between 'you' and 'Stuart.' Starting a sentence with a digit is questionable, but most style guides specify that anything less than 11 should be written out; in this case, as 'Two.' How hard is it to spell out 'years?' This is Failbook, not Twatter. I'd be willing to excuse the triple bangs (two instances) as a casual stylistic thing meant to convey extreme shock.

But the actual point of contention, 'employees,' could be: employees, employee's, or employees'.

Each has a different meaning in the sentence.

As written, it implies that he can't pay his employees their superannuation. Awkward, and it's pretty clear on a casual reading that it's meant to be a possessive. But there are two possibilities for the possessive:

The second option asserts only a lack of funding for a single employee, presumably the author but that's not as clear as it could be.

And the third projects the idea that he couldn't pay the fund for ALL his employees.

So the grammar police are right: something needs to be done.

Last week, Judge Judith Gibson reportedly ruled that Zadravic’s employer Stuart Gan would be allowed to proceed with the suit because “employees” could suggest a “systematic pattern of conduct” of shortchanging staff, whereas Zadravic claimed he was only speaking for himself. Gibson also reportedly said that the suit might cost Zadravic up to $250,000 AUD, or roughly $180,000.

However, I'm not sure that even the most hardcore Grammar Cylon would consider $180K to be a reasonable penalty for even the most egregious error in forming a possessive.

Well, maybe the most hardcore. There is the temptation to also string the offender up by his toenails until he learns the difference between it's and its; there, their, and they're; and you're, your, and yore.

Temptation, but still, probably too far. After all, you can't practice your grammar if you're hanging upside-down. You'd be too busy howling in agony. Though the pooling of blood in the brain could cause you to lapse into a comma.

Another Australian court has lately gone off the rails with social media defamation policy.

Is it really "going off the rails?" Or is it enforcing some level of needed accountability?

Last month, the High Court of Australia upheld a ruling in favor of a former teen detainee who sued media companies over commenters’ ridicule under news posts showing him hooded and strapped to a chair in a detention center. The court found that media companies (or anyone who so much as runs a Facebook page) for commenters’ speech; as a result, some outlets and the Tasmanian premier have restricted comments, and CNN has blocked Australian readers from its Facebook page.

Bit of both?

Seems more reasonable to hold the people making the speech accountable, and not those merely providing a platform. But maybe it'd be too much work to search out the true identity of OzMan69, only to find that they're hiding behind seven proxies and besides, they live on a troll farm in Kazakhstan.

Amusingly, that last quoted paragraph contains a grammatical error; it's missing a phrase. Sue them in Australia! Props for correct use of the semicolon, however.

And now, maybe some unfortunate soul goes to apostrophe jail.

Where they'll be mercilessly teased by a whole gang of purveyors of fine fresh produce.  

Now, Waltz's First Rule of the Internet states that any post correcting someone's spelling, grammar, and/or punctuation will itself contain spelling, grammar, and/or punctuation errors. So I've tried to go through and proofread this entry, eliminating any of my own mistakes. Did I succeed?

Well see.