Mistakes v. Errors

Judges are constantly faced with verses... I mean "versus." The former refers to metrical feet, like in poetry, Shakespeare sonnets kind of thing. But "versus" refers to a party or parties against one another. Like in sports...no, not like in sports. A trial is not a sporting event. Don't get me started. Where were we? Oh, yes, verses v. versus. I just proved I know the difference. But what if I wrote "Judges are constantly faced with parties verses parties." You can damned well be certain readers would point it out. Momentary aside: immediately upon typing "damned," auto correct interrupted with "the language may be offensive to your readers." Get ready for a column on that one.

Certain persnickety readers, some posing as friends, love to point out spelling and punctuation mistakes (or is it errors?) I have committed in my columns. Grammarians who think they know what they are talking about make a distinction. A mistake is an accident, whoops! One knows it's wrong after it is pointed out. But an error is something one wrote or did and "they" don't know it was wrong. Another aside: If I haven't lost you, later in this column we will explore my mistake(?) error(?) using "they" to refer to a singular antecedent.

In my last column I referred to "Daniel Webster's Dictionary." Idiot! Attorney Robert Gerstein tactfully pointed out that of course I meant... Noah Webster who is responsible for the dictionary. But I knew that so many years ago. And in a previous column I referred to people "averting" my gaze. Attorney Andy Lundberg questions whether other people can avert my gaze. They can't. They can, however, avert their gaze. One loyal reader was dismayed that I had written "It's me." Fowler in his Modern English Usage (2nd ed., Oxford Univ. Press, 1983, p. 258) gives me a pass. "It's me" is sanctioned. Note for lawyers and judges - here "sanctioned" means "approved," not "disciplined."

The title of the standard tune "It Could Happen to You" (most young readers have no idea what I am talking about) strikes a sympathetic chord within me (get it) when other writers screw up. A highly talented friend, colleague, and columnist alerted me to a mixed metaphor he read in a column. "Looks like the train is coming to the station and we are going to have to fish or cut bait." Please withhold judgment for a moment. Thinking back... say back when I was arguing cases before obdurate judges, I have an argument in support of the hapless metaphor. "It's all about context, Your Honor. The train station is situated on the bank of a lake. Passengers have been known to cut bait as the train pulls into the station and cast their lines out the train windows into the lake. Passengers in the seats opposite the fishing passengers are advised to use caution and duck. All passengers are advised to avoid slipping on the newly caught fish flopping on the floor.

On second thought, whether the metaphor is mixed is beside the point. Fishing from the window of the train on the bank of the lake is inapt in today's climate. Here I use "climate" in the literal sense of the word. Because of catastrophic conditions occasioned by the drought, the lake has dried up. It is now a mud hole devoid of fish. What heretofore was an appropriate reference has now morphed into an inappropriate metaphor.

I confess to an error in my earlier concerns about the use of "they" to refer to a previous singular pronoun. Due to the failure of our language to have an appropriate gender-neutral singular pronoun, we often used "he" as the operative pronoun to refer back to the antecedent noun. That, I always acknowledged, was unacceptable and shameful. My error was thinking that using "they" was grammatically improper if not unacceptable. I began using "she" or "he" to refer back to the singular antecedent. Example: "When a judge yells at counsel, 'she or he' casts a bad light on all judges."

But then it occurred to me that I was discriminating against men, and also subject to the criticism of pandering to women. So I alternated between "she" and "he." Mind you, it was hard to keep track. I could write a sentence with "she or he," but if the same dilemma occurred in another paragraph, wouldn't it be fair to use "he or she?" You can imagine how confusing this would be to the reader. And on other occasions, it could be days later before I wrote one with the alternating "he" or "she." Because an accurate count was not feasible, I just wrote "he or she" for a while, and then changed to "she or he." Back and forth it went until I realized that no matter how hard I tried to be fair, I was offending everyone. Obviously the "he's" and "she's" who were reading my opinions, letters, emails, articles and columns were not aware of my system. Like one of life's many inequities, my method was fair, but no one knew it. And, of course, I was in error. What I thought was the grammatically heretofore unacceptable "they" has been acceptable for years. The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) and the New Oxford American Dictionary (3rd ed., 2010) back me up. And Shakespeare had no problems with a plural pronoun agreeing with its singular antecedent. In Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3, Antipholus of Syracuse says, "There's not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend." Please do not argue that it would have been better for Shakespeare to have written "not a person." Shakespeare's plays for the most part praised women for their sensitivity, compassion, character and wisdom. Come to think of it, most of his male characters were jerks. Shakespearian scholars need not respond.

Grammar changes and evolves with the times. A person's gender is often "their" business. If one's gender is not relevant to the subject, let our words that reflect our thoughts accommodate respect and common sense.