"Not As It Seems" - Khoiba, 2005

I laughed out loud in the bathroom this morning, listening to a news item on BBC Radio Five Live's "Breakfast" show.

Shelagh Fogarty began telling listeners about an upcoming costume auction. What she said was something like..."Obi-Wan Kenobi's brown cloak and uniforms from 'Dad's Army' will be soon be going under the hammer."

HUH?????

I thought I was hearing things. Obviously, Shelagh's sidekick Nicky did a double-take, too, asking if that was really what was on the script. She said yes...and then a few moment's later, after loads of laughter from the entire "Breakfast" team, she realized that there was some punctuation missing from the statement.

The news item was intended to read like this: "Obi-Wan Kenobi's brown cloak [comma] and uniforms from 'Dad's Army' [comma] will soon be going under the hammer."

What a difference a couple of commas can make!

And for those of you who aren't familiar with "Dad's Army", it was a late-60's/early-70's UK sitcom about the misadventures of a local English voluntary defense group (known as the Home Guard) during World War II. I would guess it remains one of the most popular UK sitcoms of all time.

This led to one Five Live listener e-mailing this to the program:

"Luke, Captain Mainwaring is your father."

Janet