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<wordnerd>
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It's amazing the things you sometimes find on line while looking for other things ...

This, found on a site, appears to be taken verbatim from The Book of Lists by David Wallechinsky & Amy Wallace. I'll parcel out their second and third examples in the next few days. Perhaps some of us have further real-world examples?
    Czarina Maria Fyodorovna once saved the life of a man by transposing a single comma in a warrant signed by her husband, Alexander III, which exiled a criminal to imprisonment and death in Siberia.

    On the bottom of the warrant the czar had written: `Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia.'

    The czarina changed the punctuation so that her husband's instructions read: `Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia.'

    The man was set free.
 
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Picture of Kalleh
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Wow! That is great...much like "Eats, Shoots & Leaves."
 
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Picture of BobHale
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While I find this plausible and funny, I suspect it of being apocryphal. (See also A language hoax.)


"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
 
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Here is the page from The Book of Lists with the comma story. That doesn't make it true, though!


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
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