The Accent

1895

Mr. Story, the sculptor, who began life as a lawyer, tells a good story which illustrates the fact that the emphasis which punctuates has as much to do with determining the sense of a sentence as the meaning of the words.

Once, when he was called upon to defend a woman accused of murdering her husband, he adduced as one of the proofs of her innocence the fact of her having attended him on his deathbed and said to him when he was dying, "Good by, George!"

The counsel for the plaintiff declared that ought rather to be taken as a proof of her guilt, and that the words she had used were, "Good, by George!" — New York Dispatch.