what is he on about?

Right. Last Thursday presented a couple flying chips of grammar that got caught in my eye. The first was in Justice Ginsburg’s dissent in Gonzales v. Carhart where she uses the sentence “Revealing in this regard, the Court invokes an antiabortion shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable evidence…” I immediately reached up and grabbed my Concise OED, hurdled over to Webster’s online, and checked with Wikipedia for enlightenment. I’ll just paraphrase a combo platter of what it means: customs, principles, or beliefs that distinguish groups of people. It also means a slogan, catchword, saying, or belief that has little meaning or truth. As if reading slip decisions isn’t difficult enough? I’ve got to deal with Ginsburg and Scalia chucking in words that I need to cross-reference? Even with my complaint lodged, I’ll be trying to sneak this into conversation at the big ‘do on Saturday night in Clarendon (X is the coordinator of this law journal spending spree, ask her. I think I’m supposed to be nice.)

The other turn of phrase that caught my attention was in Sen. Arlen Spector’s opening remarks during the Gonzales testimony last week (psst. Go to Spector’s Web site and tell me that picture of him is current). I love this one, “was replaced because she was hot on the trail of confederates of former Congressman Duke Cunningham…” Hot on the trail of confederates! If I weren’t so grammatically inept I’d more often take the time to ponder terms like confederate, and I’d correctly think of confederation as groups, joining of peoples, allies, etc. Instead, I’m just a dope that always associates the word with the Confederacy; my mind turns to thinking ‘bad guys’ as opposed to a grouping of like-minded folk. Allies and Axis in WWII seem to make sense, but Union and Confederacy in the Civil War are two words for the pretty much the same thing. Ah, who knows? What I like about confederates as allies, pals, all for one and one for all, is that I can stop referring to my 401 bus confederates as carnies. Confederates all.

On a lighter note, G asked me during bowling last Saturday what the term Turkey meant, and where it originated. What you might think is that it came from the big gobble-gobble birds we eat at the Holidays. Well…you’d be right. At the time, I had no good story to pass along from my years of keggling, but it seems to be quite a simple origination. In the early 20th Century it was much harder to get three strikes in a row, so during the holiday weeks proprietors would offer a live bird to the first player on each team to get three strikes in a row (also from Wikipedia). You’re not free of bowling terms yet, not by a long shot. Another bowling term’s history came to my attention as I was rooting around, “Brooklyn”. I know from a Brooklyn, because my Brooklyn ball is quite good, especially when it’s just peaking across the headpin. It seems to have originated from the days when people crossed over from Manhattan to Brooklyn, and is the term for right-handers hitting the 1-2 pocket. Fair enough, but confusing when I look at a map. A side term is apparently “Jersey side” which describes the same crossing over for left-handers (the 1-3 pocket); representing travel from Manhattan to Jersey. Now I’m really off on this whole thing. Seriously, look at a map and you’ve got Manhattan in the middle (say it’s the 1 pin), Brooklyn to the east (say it’s the 3 pin), and Jersey to the west (the 2 pin). If I’m right-handed and crossover the headpin and hit the 1-2 pocket, I’m so in Jersey. If I’m left-handed and crossover to the 1-3 pocket, I’m sitting in Mr. Kotter’s classroom getting hounded by Mr. Woodman – that’s Brooklyn! I think wikipedia is all messed up on this one. It seems that what they mean to say is that if you’re IN Brooklyn they call any cross over a Jersey, if you’re not in Brooklyn any cross over is a Brooklyn; so Manhattan is the center of the bowling universe? Jeez. Further research yields this: both terms represent the cross over pocket for both types of bowlers – it just depends where you happen to have learned your bowling terminology. The “Jersey Side” action committee doesn’t seem to have found a foothold in Middle America.

This is the most useless entry I’ve ever written, and I’ve written some useless ones…


T.