Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Advice from Kenny Rogers

You probably know these lyrics to the well-loved Kenny Rogers song, "The Gambler":
And the night got deathly quiet,
And his face lost all expression.
Said, if you're gonna play the game, boy,
You gotta learn to play it right.
This is a lesson in the importance of proper use of commas. Without the comma after "game," the listener might think that The Gambler was admonishing the narrator (and, by extension, us) to train himself in the proper use of Nintendo's vintage-1989 handheld game console. That is,
...if you're gonna play the Game Boy,
You gotta learn to play it right.
I thought I'd be clever and cobble together a picture of Kenny Rogers playing Tetris, but a quick search revealed no fewer than five pages already dedicated to this line.
Humbled! And by the Internet, no less! Bah.

2 comments:

Dave W said...

You are the man now, dog.

Nancy C said...

This is one of the many reasons I love you.