Commas tin alteration meaning (“eats shoots and leaves” versus “eats, shoots and leaves” oregon “I ate, grandma” versus “I ate grandma”), but implicit a period ago, commas helped alteration the Russian government.
In 1905, uprisings broke retired each crossed the Russian Empire arsenic peasants, workers, and soldiers revolted against the repression and unit they lived under. This would yet pb to the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy and the constitution of a law monarchy.
Among the agitators were the workers astatine Sytin’s Moscow publishing house. At the time, printers were paid by the missive set, but this didn’t see punctuation. From “A past of punctuation” by Florence Hazrat successful Aeon:
…in 1905, Moscow printers demanded to beryllium paid for mounting not lone letters but besides punctuation marks, which required the aforesaid enactment and the aforesaid magnitude of clip arsenic the alphabet. What is known arsenic the “Comma Strike” dispersed fashionable boycott passim the country, starring to the czar ceding Russia its archetypal constitution.
And from a 1950s world nonfiction rubric “The Strike and The Revolution” by Feliks Gross successful Il Politico:
The October uprising of the 1905 gyration was triggered by an economical strike. The printers successful a Moscow store struck, due to the fact that they were not paid for commas, semi-colons and periods – successful a word, for punctuation. A railroad onslaught followed. The railroad onslaught dispersed and changed into a wide and governmental protest.
The commas that started a revolution. A good, post-Labor Day reminder that each labor, including placing punctuation is consequential.
English (US) ·