Yeahhhh, no. I don’t blame you for thinking this, because the musical can’t tell the whole story of that comma in two lines in one song, so here it is:
In real life, Angelica wrote a letter to Hamilton in which she wrote, “Indeed, my dear, Sir…”
Innocent enough, if you ignore the context.*
Then, in response, Hamilton writes this [emphasis HIS]:
You ladies despise the pedantry of punctuation. There was a most critical comma in your last letter. It is my interest that it should have been designed; but I presume it was accidental. Unriddle this if you can. The proof that you do it rightly may be given by the omission or repetition of the same mistake in your next.
Then he signed the letter, “Adieu ma chere, soeur” (Farewell my dear, sister).
Angelica writes a letter to Hamilton in which she perhaps accidentally writes “my dear, Sir” instead of “my dear Sir,” which leads one to read “dear” as a noun (my dear) rather than an adjective for Sir, making it much more intimate.
Hamilton writes back and says, basically, “In a letter I received from you two weeks ago I noticed a comma in the middle of a phrase. It changed the meaning. Did you intend this? One stroke and you’ve consumed my waking days.”
Then asks her to repeat the same “mistake” in her next letter if she did, indeed, intend it.
He ends the letter by making that “mistake,” calling her “my dear.”
He knew exactly what he was doing, and with the context it’s about as subtle as writing, “i like u do u like me check one [ ] yes [ ] no.”
And if you don’t know, now you know.
*The context being, “I know you’re upset that I didn’t write you back, but have you considered that I was totally playing hard to get so you would write me another letter in which you flatter me to death? It totally worked, btw.”
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