The oft-quoted presidential candidates continue to underscore the importance of careful word choice.

Ladies first.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton gave her concession speech June 7, she said, “Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate [Barack Obama] on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run.”

Notice she says suspend, not terminate. To suspend is to temporarily stop, to defer to a later time on specified conditions. Terminate means to stop, to cease, to bring to a more final close.

This word choice suggests two things. First, it indicates that admitting defeat is not easy for Mrs. Clinton. Second, it implies interest in resuming her campaign…say, as a vice-presidential candidate.

Now, onto John McCain. His attempt to discredit Barack Obama’s military knowledge was discredited by sloppy — and worse yet, confusing — sentence structure.

“McCain pointed to comments made by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, who said Sunday that the consequences of Obama’s withdrawal plan could be ‘very dangerous,’ ” CNN reported.

” ‘I hope [Obama] will pay attention to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, particularly someone who has no military experience whatsoever,’ McCain said.”

The phrase, “particularly someone who has no military experience whatsoever” applies to the closest subject — the Join Chiefs of Staff, poor Mike Mullen. McCain’s attempt to paint Obama as a novice and Mullen as an expert completely backfired because of his sentence structure.

In other news, folks are reacting to the break up of comedians Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman. Her longtime friend Jon Hamm weighed in, telling People, “They’re two adults, and they’re living their life.”

Of course, Jon was trying to indicate that they’re being mature and going separate ways, but he followed his plural subject (two adults, they) with a singular object, living their life. Two people have two lives — even if they share a life together as a married couple or longtime partners or siblings. If they’ve broken up, they definitely have two separate lives!