(Alternative title: “Roberts Hate Bad Grammar!” — at least that makes it parallel with this and this).
Via the NYT: In Re Grammar, Roberts’s Stance Is Crystal Clear
In fact, an obsession with rhetorical precision is a central Roberts trait, said friends and former colleagues of the man nominated by President Bush to become a Supreme Court justice.A cheerfully ruthless copy editor over the years, Judge Roberts has demanded verbal rigor from his colleagues and subordinates, refusing to tolerate the slightest grammatical slip, and boasting an exceptional vocabulary and command of literature himself.
Nowhere are Judge Roberts’s tendencies as a grammarian more evident than in his memorandums from the Reagan era, when, as a lawyer in the counsel’s office, he frequently peppered notes and documents with minor syntax corrections even when the basic legal arguments were sound. If Judge Roberts is confirmed, and his word-consciousness follows him to the court, it will put him in the upper tier of justices who have put a premium on the English language.
At a minimum, his arrival would add a formidable Scrabble talent to the bench.
Amusing:
In a memorandum the next year, responding to a letter from David T. Willard, an elementary school superintendent in Illinois who opposed the administration’s education policies, Mr. Roberts again concluded that no legal issues needed to be addressed by the White House counsel. But he took the opportunity to note, “The letter is very sarcastic, although Willard inadvertently proves our point about the quality of public education by incorrectly using ‘affect’ for ‘effect.’ “
Personally, I am fairly certain this all just proves that he’s a fascist. I mean, really, who gets this uptight about grammar and such?
And I am fairly certain that “slumgullion” is a cryto-Nazi codeword:
Acknowledging that the White House usually ignored such mail, he wrote to his superior, Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, “Anyone who can quote inspiring passages from Plato and Webster, however, and use a word like ’slumgullion,’ deserves a reply, and I have drafted one for your signature.”
“Slumgullion” being, for the record, a thin stew.
Yeah, right, that’s what they all say.
