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E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online: www.dailyemerald.com
Friday, February 13,2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Jan Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
Constitutional
amendment
a federal issue,
not national
Setting aside for the moment his complete lack of under
standing of U.S. government and politics, let us examine Tim
Dreier's basic component arguments against the national gov
ernment's imposition of a Constitutional amendment strictly
defining marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman
("Feds should not regulate marriage," ODE, Feb. 2). (And yes,
Timothy, I'm starting this response out by indicating your in
satiable lack of comprehension by correcting your erroneous
error of assuming that the national government is somehow
the "federal" government. Don't forget that the "federal" gov
ernment is defined as the combination of the national, state,
and local governments inclusively).
Let us first examine his proposition that to pass the Federal
Marriage Amendment would somehow "undermine" federal
ism. However seductive and entertaining a thought that might
be for Jarrett White and those of his ilk who look back on the
Confederacy as some beacon of light in a smoke-filled, poorly
lit room at the seedy basement of a strip club, it bears no basis
in reality or fact. Indeed, federalism as the founders of this
-- country understood it disappeared
C3 UP SEE JESTT” rather suddenly with the adoption of
PfIMMENTADV 13th, 14th and 15th amendments
lAJmlvlElilfllfY and the subsequent limitations
" placed on state sovereignty.
That being stated, we next move Dreier's assertion that Arti
cle IV's "full faith and credit" application simply cannot be con
strued as to require States to recognize other states' gay mar
riages. And on what do you base this supposition on? Relying
on Supreme Court precedent is at best unavailing, as no actual
case-law exists in this matter, and lest we forget the time-hon
ored lessons of history that you so disingenuously insist upon,
some of the greatest Supreme Court decisions handed down
have relied not upon the sacredness of stare decisis, as you
would hope, but rather upon lone dissents and far less. Or have
you forgotten that Brown was decided not on established case
law, but rather on the lone dissent of the first Justice Harlan
from Plessy?
Relying on the argument that history is not in the comer of
the national government playing a part in the institution of
marriage is untenable as well. Or have you forgotten again that
Utah's admission to the Union was conditional not upon eco
nomic or governmental changes, but rather upon the dropping
of polygamy as a legal practice. I simply cannot believe that
someone who asserts so forcefully as you have a self-pro
claimed knowledge of history and government forms and func
tions could be so utterly lacking in actual knowledge. All in all,
this is an issue that must in the end be decided, one way or the
other, and I assure you all that the first time that gay couple
married in Massachusetts can compel the State of Kansas to rec
ognize its marriage, the conflict will indeed spill into the polit
ical battlefield, and the war will be an ugly one. But I suppose
we can always turn to Mr. Dreier for solace when that day ar
rives, now can't we?
Scott Austin lives in Eugene.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Textbook costs too high
to be considered affordable
I am very pleased that you have covered the topic of high
textbook prices. I, like thousands of students at the University
and like millions of students throughout the U.S., am appalled
by the staggering prices of textbooks. Just last quarter I paid
$300 on textbooks for only three classes, and I will only be able
to reuse one of the books I purchased in later classes.
I am frustrated by new additions with seemingly minute
changes and extra cassettes and CD-ROMs that skyrocket the
cost and are frequently unused. Something needs to be done.
This is supposed to be a public institution that anyone can at
tend, but how can anyone afford these outrageous costs?
OSPIRG is working on a campaign to ease the textbook
crises. OSPIRG and other groups should be supported in the
goal to make textbooks affordable.
Morgan McFadden
sophomore
pre-psychology
Pluralpandemonium
Ah, the English language. It's an intri
cate tangle of more than 100,000 living
words, a robust, flexible syntax, a
healthy battery of rules, and has more
exceptions than you can dangle a par
ticiple at.
Wait — this is one of those con
founded grammar columns, isn't it?
No, it isn't. Well, maybe a little. But I'm
not writing here to talk about why every
writer should follow obscure rules all
the time. More important and interest
ing is that writers (and people in gener
al) know the rules, and how people use
words and apply the rules that govern
them in order to better communicate
with each other. George Orwell recalled
this point in his brilliant and only mild
ly pretentious essay, "Politics and the
English Language."
"Our civilization is decadent and our
language — so the argument runs —
must inevitably share in the general col
lapse," he wrote in the essay. "It follows
that any struggle against the abuse of
language is a sentimental archaism, like
preferring candles to electric light or
hansom cabs to aeroplanes."
By the way, did you catch that? At the
end of the lead paragraph. I ended a sen
tence with a preposition. Just two sen
tences into the piece and I'd already com
mitted a blunder so egregious that even
greenhorn English graduates are wincing.
But rules are meant to be broken, as
any fourth-grader with a football in
doors on a rainy day could tell you. After
all, a tongue-tying linguistic abortion
such as "... and more exceptions than
those at which one could dangle a par
ticiple" will probably bounce off your
pars opercularis as soon as you read it —
about the time you stop caring and turn
to the sports page.
No one in a street brawls demands,
"For whom is this can of whoop-ass?" In
the less-than-seminal French action flick
"The Transporter," Jason Statham didn't
triumphandy proclaim of his fallen ene
my, "He did not know with whom he
was fucking." The point is, rules can and
should be broken, when the moment
calls for it. Unfortunately, too many
people seem not to know when those
moments are.
Whether by a poor copywriting deci
sion or simple ignorance, signs in Bath
& Body Works uselessly ask hapless
Valentine's Day shoppers, "Who do you
love?" rather than the more elegant (and
correct) "Whom?"
Coundess ads and billboards confuse
the singular possessive (the grammari
an's), the plural possessive (the gram
marians') and the plural (the grammar
ians). Worse, distinguishing between its
(third person gender-neutral possessive
pronoun) and it's (the contraction of
"it is") is becoming more arcanum than
application.
Travis Willse
Rivalless wit
The real distinction here should be
between knowing violation and simple
ignorance of rules.
Aside from the above, wrong plural
ization ranks among the commonest of
fenses and is probably among the most
important things to leam. In defense of
English speakers, irregular pluralization
is probably harder than in most other
languages. While some languages have a
smattering of different plural suffixes,
not one of them is particularly domi
nant. In English, however, most words
take a simple -s or -es suffix, with the oc
casional -y to -ies (penny, pennies) and -
f(e) to -ves (wolf, wolves) rules. Thanks
to English's bipolar history and the
readiness with which it absorbs foreign
words (and often plurals formed by for
eign rules), the lexis has accrued a long
litany of exceptions. Ox changes to oxen
and woman to women (Old English);
larva goes to larvae, genus to genera,
matrix to matrices, nucleus to nuclei and
ovum to ova (Latin); virtuoso to virtuosi
(Italian); cherub to cherubim (Hebrew)
and schema to schemata (Greek).
Learning important Latin plurals is es
pecially troublesome in this world of
higher education. On the first day of each
term, you'll collect several syllabi, letting
your friends and you compare collegiate
curricula. While doing research to sup
port your hypotheses, you might start by
thumbing through a few indices. Admin
istrators in Johnson Hall might shuffle
around memoranda about addenda and
errata to the minutes for the meeting
about enrollment data.
With all of this linguistic flotsam bob
bing around, it's amazing more linguis
tics graduate students don't develop
neuroses while writing their theses.
Pluralizing nouns whose modifiers
follow them can be just as bad, but at
least the mles are learned easily enough.
Attorneys and postmasters general can
order Whoppers Junior while passersby
— who are, incidentally, playing their
Game Boys Advance — might favor
Tacos Supreme.
The point of all this? Learning gram
matical rules is more important than
most people think, but knowingly give
it credit for. (See, I did it again.) Just as
important is understanding that learn
ing a system as convoluted as the web of
English grammatical mles and their ex
ceptions is probably a lifelong process. I
certainly might have missed a few sub
tle slips in this column.
As for how you can write better, at the
end of his essay, Orwell lists six general
mles for clear writing. The final and
most important mle mandates, "Break
any of these mles sooner than say any
thing outright barbarous."
And clear (but not outright bar
barous) communication is probably a
goal upon which we can all agree.
Contact the editorial editor
at traviswillse@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.