The Power Of Emphasis

It's funny how just the slightest change in tone can completely alter how a sentence is perceived. Put too much power behind one word and suddenly what you meant to say can be sent completely sideways. I was listening to the news this afternoon and heard the exact same quote on two different channels being said by two different journalists and each put the emphasis on a different word, so each one seemed to be implying a different message. Here's what they said and where they put the emphasis:

"It's always a good idea to get your facts right before you speak."
This gave it a slightly sarcastic tone. From the sound of it the person in question was annoyed that the speaker didn't take the time to craft out a comprehensive thought and just fired out the first thing that popped into his head. Basically, he could have a hell of a career in sports talk radio. Annoying, but not really awful.

"It's always a good idea to get your facts right before you speak."
This puts the sentence in an entirely new direction, because by just shifting the emphasis one word over, now your insulting the speaker for not being well informed and speaking out of turn. Not even the slightest bit funny, you just sound angry at the guy.

The simple solution would seem to be to simply write this stuff out, but then you have to watch out for the comma placement. You have no idea how much time I spend putting in commas, because I try to write the same way that I speak and I pause for dramatic effect way too much for my own good. A fine example of what commas can do for you:

Dave says Mike is a great player.
Dave, says Mike, is a great player.

One of those Mike is the good player, the other it's Dave. Two little commas can change the entire basis of the story (yes, it was a big editing day for me, can you tell?). Basically, I think from here on out I'm just going to start writing with no punctuation whatsoever and you guys can figure out for yourself what tone I was going for.