A recent statement made by Sonia Gandhi seems to suggest that she has more than one husband. The statement reads in part: "[O]ne of my husband Rajiv Gandhi's most significant legacies..." In fact, the statement does suggest that the writer has more than one husband. But the error is caused not by the phrase "one of my husband" but by the two missing commas.

First things first, the statement has a poor structure. A better one could be: "One of the most significant legacies of my husband..."

What follows in this article now is both interesting and important about punctuation. I will try to keep the discussion as simple as possible.

The phrase "one of" is always followed by a noun phrase. A noun phrase is a group of words that act together as a noun. For example, one of my uncles, one of his teachers, etc.

In Ms Gandhi's statement, the words "my husband Rajiv Gandhi's most significant legacies" is a noun phrase. In every noun phrase, any one word is more important than the others, and it relates directly to the "one of" phrase. In the above phrase it is "legacies".

Settled.

Now the blunder: Rajiv Gandhi should have been written within commas, i.e. "...my husband, Rajiv Gandhi,..." What difference does it make? A lot. Whenever we mention a person who is one of his type, we must use "the only comma" (Benjamin Dreyer). We say, "The Delhi CM, Arvind Kejriwal,..." But "A director Guru Dutt..."

Why? Whatever is written within the only commas can be removed without changing the meaning. That is, if we delete the name "Arvind Kejriwal", "The Delhi CM" will still refer to Kejriwal because there is only one Delhi CM. But if we remove "Guru Dutt", the meaning will be incomplete because there are many directors.

More importantly, if we don't use the only commas, it will automatically mean that there is more than one CM. This is why, Ms Gandhi's statement without the only commas, before and after Rajiv Gandhi, tells there is more than one person of the type, i.e. husband.

Punctuation can be very tricky, handle it with care.