Let's eat Grandma! vs Let's eat, Grandma! Punctuation matters. LOL

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COMMENTS: 
*  What difference does it make? It isn't a law. It is a declaration.
   *  Exactly, The Declaration pits the reason for claim to Independence, the references to government within it are to that of the limited monarchy and Parliament of Briton and to that which they do not provide for in scope of the colonials. The emphasis of equality and rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. ...
*  Malarkey, the Declaration of Independence did NOT create us as a country, the Constitution did. At the end of the revolution, we were not a country, we were thirteen countries. The framers of the Constitution really did not want a central government at all. They had recently fought a bitter war to get rid of an arrogant and intrusive central government. The last thing they wanted was another, if homegrown, one. The Bill of Rights was created expressly to limit the powers of the new central government. If the framers could see us today they would be horrified.
   *  It is amazing how many people don't get that. Our laws would be the same without the Declaration.
*  More proof we are a republic governed by laws not a democracy governed by people
*   I have a major question for you. If that was a period.. what would be the point of the dash "-" . The dash means the sentences are connected. Would period then dash be a sensible sentence? No, the dash would be meaningless. Thereby this article and these experts should be tarred and feathered in the streets.
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An extra period in the Declaration of Independence could change our understanding of the role of government
By Christina Sterbenz, July 4, 2016



The Declaration Of Independence made the United States an autonomous country 240 years ago this Fourth of July.

But the document's official transcript, produced by the National Archives, might contain an error — an extra period right in the middle of one of the most significant sentences, The New York Times reports.

A quick Google search for the text will show that many websites and organizations follow the National Archives' lead. Here's the full sentence, with an added period highlighted in red:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...."

That period doesn't appear on the faded original parchment, Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, contends. And it changes the meaning of the sentence, which effectively alters Americans' interpretation of government's role in protecting their individual rights.

"The logic of the sentence moves from the value of individual rights to the importance of government as a tool for protecting those rights," Allen told the Times. "You lose that connection when the period gets added."

Americans tend to interpret the message in its current form: that government is subordinate to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Without the period, the importance of government could serve as part of a larger argument, instead of a separate thought.

Unfortunately, the original document has faded to near illegibility. But Allen points out that many early transcripts, some from 1776, exclude the period. Take Thomas Jefferson's so-called original rough draft, held in the Library of Congress — no period, according to the Times.

But that argument has its dissenters, especially those who feel the punctuation matters little to the meaning. Allen disagrees.

"We are having a national conversation about the value of our government, and it goes get connected to our founding documents," Allen told the Times. "We should get right what's in them."

This isn't the first time a historical text's punctuation made the national stage. Debate over a comma in the Second Amendment traveled all the way to the Supreme Court in 2008. Then, lawyers argued its interpretation changed the meaning of our right to bear arms.
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