I was casually scrolling through my Tiktok\’s \”For You\” page when I stumbled upon a video about this Broadway Production of Hamilton. I was instantly falling in love with the lyrics, like \”Gosh! That\’s so romantic?!\”
Hamilton is a sung-and-rapped-through musical with music, lyrics, and a book by Lin-Manuel Miranda, based on the 2004 book Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. The musical tells the story of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. This musical is famous for its poetic verses. But, the one I want to talk about today is the story of a letter sent by Alexander Hamilton to Angelica Schuyler (aka Angelica Church) as told in \”Take a Break\”, because this specific lyrics was the one that caught my attention for the first time. I am talking about these lyrics:
\”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,
It says \”My dearest Angelica\”
With a comma after the \”dearest\”
You\’ve written \”My dearest, Angelica\”
For me, it proves how powerful language and all its elements can be. Yes, I am especially talking about the punctuation here. And comma is one of the most important and common punctuation marks (and often misused) in writing. As you can see from the lyrics above, one comma could change everything.
In the musical, the comma is not a typo nor a grammatical error. It was intentional, it was the way Hamilton flirted with Angelica– his sister-in-law. Even Lin-Manuel Miranda (the writer) himself refers this as \”comma sexting\”.
If you don\’t get it, \”My dearest Angelica\” means my dearest person named Angelica, while \”My dearest, Angelica\” means my dearest person ever 😉
In this digital age, where short-form conversations prevail, it is not strange for people to look at a message once, twice, thrice – trying to decode what the other is saying, or what is not being said. I also think that punctuation is indeed critical to translation.
Oh, and if you are wondering like me when you read that Angelica is Hamilton\’s sister-in-law, rather than his lover, you can keep reading, hehe.
I was enchanted when I read the lyrics and I can\’t help to start to look up about the story. I was surprised when I found out that Angelica is Hamilton\’s sister-in-law. Mind you, I am against the idea of cheating, so yeah, this kinda make me upset hahaha. Fortunately, I found a blog talking about this.
From that blog, it was said that Hamilton never wrote “My dearest Angelica,” with or without a comma. (He did write “my dear Angelica” in three letters between 1794 and 1803). The inspiration for that verse clearly comes from an exchange between Angelica Church and Alexander Hamilton in 1787. In the first letter, Church wrote:
You had every right my dear brother to believe that I was very inattentive not to have answered your letter; but I could not relinquish the hopes that you would be tempted to ask the reason of my Silence, which would be a certain means of obtaining the second letter when perhaps had I answered the first, I should have lost all the fine things contained in the Latter. Indeed my dear, Sir if my path was strewed with as many roses, as you have filled your letter with compliments, I should not now lament my absence from America: but even Hope is weary of doing any thing for so assiduous a votary as myself. I have so often prayed at her shrine that I am now no longer heard. Church’s head is full of Politics, he is so desirous of making once in the British house of Commons, and where I should be happy to see him if he possessed your Eloquence.
Hamilton wrote back in December:
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.
So Mr. Church resolves to be a parliament-man. I had rather see him a member of our new Congress; but my fervent wish always is that much success may attend all his wishes. I am sincerely attached to him as well as to yourself.
Hamilton signed that letter “Adieu ma chere, soeur” (Adieu my dear, sister), to drive home the joke about punctuation.
In any event, it was Hamilton, not Church, who read meaning into a misplaced comma and wondered what it meant about the other’s affections. Hamilton even invited Church to repeat the “the same mistake” in her next letter. If she did, that document is lost. The next letter we have is from late 1789, and Church wrote:
Adieu my dear Brother, may god bless and protect you, prays your ever affectionate Angelica ever ever yours. . . . Adieu my dear Hamilton, you said I was as dear to you as a sister keep your word, and let me have the consolation to believe that you will never forget the promise of friendship you have vowed. A thousand embraces to my dear Betsy, she will not have so bad a night as the last
No commas out of place there, plus a mention of his wife and of “the promise of friendship…as a sister”. Angelica Church wrote that letter just as she finished a visit to New York without her husband, and some authors think that was when she and Hamilton consummated an affair. But it’s impossible to know.
In conclusion, their relationship was still unknown. But I kinda relieved, at least I got a little bit of hope (sorry not sorry).
If you are interested, you can also found the letter in government\’s archives HERE 🙂
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