Ware-R-U?

WARE R U? Or should I say where are us, I mean, we? At the outset… no, please, this is the outset. No need to tell you what you know; this is the beginning. Notice I omitted “already” to modify “know.” Redundant. And, yes, I often favor semicolons. They do good things in the interest of clarity, like stringing together closely connected ideas in two sentences. I read in the Financial Times that Amy Bleuel (not “one” Amy Bleuel) founded a movement called Project Semicolon. Ms. Bleuel wished to help others who like her suffered from depression. She advocated drawing a semicolon on one’s wrist. She stated this would be a reminder that “[a] semicolon represents a sentence the author could’ve ended but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life…. [t]he story is not over.” The tattoo industry profited from the hundreds of thousands of people who joined the movement. I leave to the reader’s imagination the various spots on the body where the tattooed semicolons found a home. Tragically the story was over for Ms. Bleuel who took her life four years later. I hope that Ms. Bleuel’s creative and insightful metaphor for the semicolon offers emotional strength to those in her movement. Here, however, my focus is on grammar. Because it requires effort for proper use, the effort is worth it. Yes, the semicolon has always been controversial. And, unfortunately, some see its use as a sign of ostentatious superiority among the “educated.” “Use a dash, or just forget about it,” some “texters” argue. Kurt Vonnegut, a writer I admire, wrote that semicolons are “transvestite hermaphrodites” that represent “nothing.” “All they do is show you’ve been to college.” But Abraham Lincoln, for whom I have more admiration, was reputed to have said that the semicolon is “a useful little chap.” Come to think of it, imagine what things would be like if more people went to college. But enough about semicolons; let’s move on to other concerns. To quote Nobel Prize winner for literature Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” For the better? I recall my high school history teacher predicting that the future would consist of a three- to four-day work week of around four or five hours a day, leaving plenty of time for leisure. To quote from another song in a different genre and context, “Whatcha Say?” Hard to predict how things will turn out with so many variables. If we pay attention to detail, and think through a problem and how we express it, our opponents are less likely to sow confusion and rancor. One would think that would be the case if we had time. But we do. Texting, the grotesque transformation of a noun to a verb, like “partnering,” “transitioning,” “friending,” is a rush to express a point without time for reflection. This is in contradiction to concise critical writing that takes longer. And by the way, it was Pascal who wrote to his friend that he would have written a shorter letter but did not have the time. We unnecessarily compress our time. Instead, we must use our time, dare I call it leisure, to think and reflect. Brief apropos digression occasioned by a telephone call I just received while typing the preceding sentence. It was from the service manager at the dealership where I lease my car. The car had been picked up for servicing the day before and the service manager told me someone would be bringing it back today. Next came a question that confirmed my fear about the quick pace of our daily lives. “Is your address the same?” I told him we had not moved in the past 24 hours. Glad he laughed. To be fair, he was just confirming he had the correct address. He gets a break, so many others to call. The following observations concerning our President’s tweets are not political. They are statements of fact. That reminds me, “false facts” are a misnomer. Facts are. To call them true is redundant. Yes, they may be subject to interpretation; they may be challenged; they may even be distorted. But they are or they are not. Getting back to the President’s tweets. The damage stemming from haste is obvious. Grammar and its cousin thought are casualties. But an occasional gaffe we can excuse. Self-interest follows from the preceding sentence. The New York Times reported that the President tweeted: “their is nothing bipartisan” about Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. Bryan Garner, editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary and author of Garner’s Modern English Usage took the President to task for misuse of the word “their,” instead of the proper “there.” Would it be appropriate here to disclose that Bryan Garner wrote the forward to volumes I and II of Under Submission, my books of columns? And that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote an introduction to volume II? And that all the proceeds go to legal charities and none to me or the publisher? Prefer not to receive emails in response to this paragraph or to comment on solecisms that may occur in this column. This includes punctuation errors, dangling participles, misplaced modifiers, and any ambiguities. Just occurred to me this request is bound to have the opposite effect. Oh well. But seizing on every little grammatical error subjects the critic to contempt for being an educated snob. This in turn allows those with base motives to attack education and deny it to those who may need it most. When the President tweeted about his condemnation of those who “pour” over his tweets, I did not condemn him for not using the word “pore.” And that has nothing to do with my having… how embarrassing… once made the same mistake. Well, if you misuse “pour” shortly after pouring yourself a cup coffee,… agree, not even worth a try. A lawyer who would make such an argument as an excuse for neglect would probably be sanctioned. And I suppose it is sacrilegious to point out Neil Armstrong’s error when he uttered the first words of a human being setting foot on the moon. Do I have to repeat it? He did not say “a man,” which would contrast with “mankind.” I read that years later a computer analysis of sound waves supports those who believe he said the word “a” before “man.” I don’t buy it, but Armstrong gets a pass. Who cares about this minor slip? He is the first person on the moon. He had other things to attend to. For everyone, and particularly those of us in the legal profession, clarity should be our guide. Some cynical advocates might argue that the weaker the case the better to obfuscate. Judges and opposing counsel most always see through that. When it happens, the profession suffers; and it suffers just as much when it happens because of carelessness instead of design. Of course, language is dynamic, fluid, and subject to change and usage. The rigid, grammatical Puritan is subject to ridicule and derision. But too much laxness leads down a dark corridor of ignorance. Former Los Angeles Chief of Police William Bratton’s “broken windows” approach to reduce crime serves as a useful analogy. It was more nuanced than a zero-tolerance policy of policing based on a rigid moralistic standard. It was a policy that recognized that low level crime leads to more serious offenses. The same applies to the expression of our thoughts. Contempt for education leads to contempt for careful thinking expressed in careful writing and speaking. And that threatens our democratic institutions. On Halloween, The New York Times reported a scary story. Testing by the research arm of the Department of Education revealed that 4th and 8th graders’ ability to read literature and academic tests has declined since 2017. Only about one-third of the students had proficiency in these subjects. That is not just scary; it is horrifying.