Sentence structure is everything!

Okay, I'm not normally off-color, but I think this highlights a point that I face with my personal writing and with manuscripts that cross my desk. I'm talking about clarity. No matter what our day jobs are, we are invariably faced with the need to communicate in an email or a letter. Since I'm a writer, I can ill afford to have double entendres unless I put them there on purpose. How 'bout you?

This little story brings my point home very well.

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The boss had to fire somebody, and he narrowed it down to one of two people, Debra or Jack. It was an impossible decision because they were both super workers.

Rather than flip a coin, he decided he would fire the first one who used the water cooler the next morning.

Debra came in the next morning with a horrible hangover after partying all night. She went to the cooler to take an aspirin.

The boss approached her and said, "Debra, I've never done this before but I have to lay you or Jack off."

"Could you jack off?" she says. "I feel like shit.

Thanks, Shan!