After leaving class on Thursday, I began to think about the use of words and how meaning can change simply due to a change in punctuation. I recalled that in high school, we would study poems where there would be placement of punctuation in the middle of a line or sometimes not at all. For example take this limerick:

There was a young man who said, "Do
Tell me how I'm to add two and two.
I'm not very sure
That it doesn't make four -
But I fear that is almost too few."

Note how the beginning of the quotation starts at the end of the first line and finishes at the end of the last time. A new sentence begins in the first line and finishes in the second line etc…
E.E. Cummings, is a notable poet whose most striking poems contained no punctuation or typographical innovations whatsoever. By adding this, the meaning of the poem could be changed entirely. Without punctuation, I feel that the audience is left with more room for imagination and unpacking the meaning behind the text as Barthes mentions when he states “Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes?” This relates to the concept of tmesis which is the notion of interjecting in the middle of words, concepts, thoughts and ideas. I found a humorous media example of this when I was looking through some old Saturday Night Live skits. In a skit performed by Chris Farley, he exclaims “Well, la-dee-frickin-da!” I found this to be a perfect example of tmesis as audience members can fill in the gap of “la-dee- _ _ _ _ _ _ _-da!” Here we see the linguistic phenomenon in which a word is separated in two parts with other words occurring between them.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/down-by-the-river/243779/