So literally…

A wife tells her husband ‘pick up a gallon of milk on your way back home, and if they have avocados, get six.’ He gets home, and she asks, ‘why did you get six gallons of milk?’ (They had avocados.)

Sounds nitpicky? Communication is important. Violence has been sparked over misunderstandings. Wars have been started over misinterpretations. If she would have said ‘get six avocados if they have them’ or even said, ‘get six of them’ they wouldn’t have a fridge full of rotting milk. I’m a little bit nitpicky about grammar, and not just because I have a technical background. My peeves? How much do you weigh in kilograms? (a kilogram is a unit of mass, not weight.) And ‘the motorist was traveling at a high rate of speed.’ (Okay so he was accelerating quickly, but was he going too fast?) If you are driving down the interstate at a constant 100 mph, you are traveling at a high speed, but you have a zero rate of speed.

Oh yeah and leave my grammar out of this, god rest her soul.