Why I Like “That”

—When it’s used as a relative pronoun to introduce a subordinate clause. Not that I like the conversation in the comic, but the speech in the second panel is a good example of how using “that” after the verb “sorry” removes ambiguity.

I’m a technical writer by trade, and I hate ambiguity. The period also removes the ambiguity, but you can’t hear a period.

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Yes, Beetle made a grammar error, using “I” where he should have used “me.” But the other guy made a syntax error, causing the ambiguity that gave us the punchline.

What should he have said to remove the ambiguity?

By the way, even Beetle’s correct grammar is tricky. “Me” isn’t a direct object, but the subject of an infinitive (to dig), which takes the objective case!

Or “why I say ‘correct’ instead of ‘right.'”

A motto I have posted on my office wall says “Ambiguity is the enemy of good documentation.

PS—this reminds me of the skit “Who’s on First?”

The comic is funny because of the ambiguity, but if you’re not trying to be funny, don’t be ambiguous.

The solution in this case is to add labels. Tregg should have sent something like this:

—as far as the writing goes, anyway. It’s ambiguous. I ran into this:

Stop Wasting Money With PayPal’s New Money-Saving Tool

(Find it yourself. It’s around.)

What’s the relationship between the tool and money?

• You waste money if you use the tool? This is how I took it when I first read the line—It was an ad for a competing product.
• You waste money if you don’t use the tool?

The problem is what “with” means. Less ambiguous would be to say, “Stop wasting money. Use PayPal’s new money-saving tool.”

You can probably come up with a few other ways to say it. Feel free to improve the line with your own line in the comments.