In English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences.
Example 1:
An English professor wrote the words "a woman without her man is nothing" on the whiteboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.
All the males in the class wrote: "a woman, without her man, is nothing."
All the females in the class wrote: "a woman: without her, man is nothing."
Example 2:
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
"Why?" asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"Well, I'm a panda", he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
Can you get the jokes? =P
Intended meaning for example 2 is
Panda eats shoots and leaves.
(Noun) (Verb) (Noun) (Conjunction) (Noun)
not what the panda had interpretated as
Panda eats, shoots and leaves.
(Noun) (Verb) (Verb) (Conjunction) (Verb)
