Punctuation is Powerful

I am doing a lot of editing lately. Placing a comma in different parts of a sentence can completely alter the meaning. In fact there are whole discussions on commas, types of commas and where and how to use them--but don't  worry I won't get into that today.

An English professor wrote these words:

"A woman without her man is nothing"

on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All of the males in the class wrote:
"A woman, without her man, is nothing."


All the females in the class wrote:
"A woman: without her, man is nothing."