Striking a blow for standards
As a product of an amazingly tough series of high school English grammar classes, I cringe whenever I see words and punctuation abused. Especially when the abusers are people who really should know better (including myself). So I laughed long and hard over this news tidbit from the remarkable events occurring up in San Francisco:
SAN FRANCISCO - Conservative groups trying to stop the city from issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples failed to win any immediate action today in two separate court hearings.
Superior Court Judge James Warren told plaintiffs late this afternoon that they would likely succeed on the merits of their case but said he would not issue a court order until they corrected a punctuation error in their legal filing.
“I am not trying to be petty here, but it is a big deal. That semicolon is a big deal,” Warren told attorneys, according to an account by Associated Press.
In documents filed with the court, the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund had requested a court order that would force the city “cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to and/or solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples; to show cause before this court.”
“The way you’ve written this it has a semicolon where it should have the word ‘or’,” the judge said. “I don’t have the authority to issue it under these circumstances.”
February 20th, 2004 at 3:00 pm
Nooooo!!
Little boy, you will not get any pie with whipped cream until you fully grasp the distinction between “amount” and “fewer”!
February 20th, 2004 at 5:20 pm
{Sorry, I just cannot resist.}
“Noooo! You cannot split an infinitive!”
“When you are using the coke machine, please put the nickels in first, in order to ensure that sufficient quantities of small change remain in the machine for subsequent patrons…”
Orange Volvo!
February 20th, 2004 at 5:21 pm
{Sorry, I just cannot resist.}
“Noooo! You cannot split an infinitive!”
“When you are using the coke machine, please put the nickels in first, in order to ensure that sufficient quantities of small change remain in the machine for subsequent patrons…”
Orange Volvo!
February 23rd, 2004 at 9:47 am
That’s it– my new legal public service project. I’m going to get a bunch of Greenpeace-ish kids to picket the court house with signs demanding that, to save paper, the judiciary allow and encourage interlineation on marginally fekakhed pleadings.
I imagine them marching with placards that say things like “De Minimis Non Curat Mundi,” and giving out little cards with lists of common proof-readers’ marks, printed on hemp paper.
I’ve seen people picket for dumber things. Actually, I have picked for dumber things.