World's greatest comment responding to a blog post

Here.

Phil Ochs at the Chicago 7 Trial

MR. KUNSTLER: Now, Mr. Ochs, have you ever been associated with what is called the Youth International Party, or, as we will say, the Yippies?

THE WITNESS: Yes. I helped design the party, formulate the idea of what Yippie was going to be, in the early part of 1968.

MR. KUNSTLER: Can you indicate to the Court and jury what Yippie was going to be, what its purpose was for its formation?

THE WITNESS: The idea of Yippie was to be a form of theater politics, theatrically dealing with what seemed to be an increasingly absurd world and trying to deal with it in other than just on a straight moral level. They wanted to be able to act out fantasies in the street to communicate their feelings to the public.

MR. KUNSTLER: Now, were any of the defendants at the table involved in the formation of the Yippies?

THE WITNESS: Yes, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.

MR. KUNSTLER: Can you just point to and identify which one is Jerry Rubin and which one is Abbie Hoffman?

THE WITNESS: Yes, Jerry Rubin with the headband and Abbie Hoffman with the smile.

* * *

MR. KUNSTLER: After you arrived in Chicago did you have any discussion with Jerry?

THE WITNESS: Yes, I did. We discussed the nomination of a pig for President.

MR. KUNSTLER: Would you state what you said and what Jerry said.

THE WITNESS: We discussed the details. We discussed going out to the countryside around Chicago and buying a pig from a farmer and bringing him into the city for the purposes of his nominating speech.

MR. KUNSTLER: Did you have any role yourself in that?

THE WITNESS: Yes, I helped select the pig, and I paid for him.

MR. KUNSTLER: Now, did you find a pig at once when you went out?

THE WITNESS: No, it was very difficult. We stopped at several farms and asked where the pigs were.

MR. KUNSTLER: None of the farmers referred you to the police station, did they?

THE WITNESS: No.

MR. FORAN: Objection.

THE COURT: I sustain the objection.

MR. KUNSTLER: Mr. Ochs, can you describe the pig which was finally bought?

MR. FORAN: Objection.

THE COURT., I sustain the objection.

MR. KUNSTLER: Would you state what, if anything, happened to the pig?

THE WITNESS: The pig was arrested with seven people.

MR. KUNSTLER: When did that take place?

THE WITNESS: This took place on the morning of August 23, at the Civic Center underneath the Picasso sculpture.

MR. KUNSTLER: Who were those seven people?

THE WITNESS: Jerry Rubin. Stew Albert, Wolfe Lowenthal, myself is four; I am not sure of the names of the other three.

MR. KUNSTLER: What were you doing when you were arrested?

THE WITNESS: We were arrested announcing the pig's candidacy for President.

MR. KUNSTLER: Did Jerry Rubin speak?

THE WITNESS: Yes, Jerry Rubin was reading a prepared speech for the pig---the opening sentence was something like, "I, Pigasus, hereby announce my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States." He was interrupted in his talk by the police who arrested us.

MR. KUNSTLER: What was the pig doing during this announcement?

MR. FORAN: Objection.

MR. KUNSTLER: Do you remember what you were charged with?

THE WITNESS: I believe the original charge mentioned was something about an old Chicago law about bringing livestock into the city, or disturbing the peace, or disorderly conduct, and when it came time for the trial, I believe the charge was disorderly conduct.

MR. KUNSTLER: Were you informed by an officer that the pig had squealed on you?

MR. FORAN: Objection. I ask it be stricken.

THE WITNESS: Yes.

THE COURT: I sustain the objection. When an objection is made do not answer until the Court has ruled.

Yip, er, tip of the hat to Famous Trials.

Passive voice can be eliminated just about every time.

From JB Dryden's company ("A blog about the daily rigors of a freelance fiction editor (and writer) with a passion for beating terrible grammar into submission"):

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Being that I haven’t been inspired as of late, I decided to visit a few of my regular blog reads. I came across this from a couple of weeks ago. Grammar Girl spoke about passive versus active voice. Her thoughts were well spoken, but there was something in it that I wanted to elaborate on:

Another important point is that passive sentences aren't incorrect; it’s just that they often aren't the best way to phrase your thoughts. Sometimes passive voice is awkward and other times it’s vague.

More as an editor than as a grammarian (and I am both), I find passive voice distracting. Over the past decade, the vastly-expanding Post-Modern movement has been sweeping over the literary world. There is a wealth of books in the market, which are laced with Post-Modern style. In my opinion, passive voice is the weapon of choice in most of those styles. In the way that those stories are told – the slice-of-life, lack of emphasis on anything in particular happening – passive voice seems not only natural but in an over-abundance.

I don’t like it. I never have. I want a story that tells me something, in which characters do something, and in the end there’s a resolution. Passive voice and passive writing doesn’t accomplish anything – nor does it seek or have the goal of accomplishing anything. As Grammar Girl pointed out, it can be eliminated just about every time. It is best to write actively, for your characters to drive the action, and for your plot to be the focus not the backdrop.

The worst place to find passive voice, though, is in business writing, and over the past few months I’ve become increasingly aware of it. With more and more people in businesses opting for emails as their preferred method of communication, there is a sincere lack of attention paid to how things get written when something more formal is required. And without anyone in the office with an eye keen enough to point out the flaws in such writing, businesses seems unschooled when it comes to their writing samples. What’s worse is that when I am asked to write something for someone in my office, it gets rewritten with passive voice because it sounds more PC or less “offensive” as one manager told me.

Example:

I wrote: I need these forms to be signed by the end of the week, or Mr. X will not be able to get you your money.

Manager rewrote: These forms will need your signature sometime this week, so that your money may be sent out in a timely fashion.

We got our signed papers three days late. It's not straight-forward, and there's no sense of urgency.

It just doesn’t make sense to beat around the bush in a business because nothing is going to get done. Just as in your stories your characters perform actions, your writing in any setting needs to show someone doing something. Otherwise, the piece of paper is just being written upon by you.

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By my count, this denunciation of passive verbs contains six of the little varmints -- seven if you count the final sentence, which I'm willing to assume was intended to be ironic. With the others, though, I see nothing to suggest that the preacher realized he was slipping into sin.

There is much else to remark on here, and not just the many instances of the Law of Prescriptive Retaliation at work. (Passive verbs are the weapons of postmodernism! These forms will need your signature is a passive construction! Dogs flew spaceships!) But it's late, and I've almost used up my allotment of snarkiness for the week.

Cognitive Dissonance at the Supreme Court

"Where there are two ways to read the text -- either [the word] attorney is surplusage, in which case the text is plain; or attorney is nonsurplusage . . ., in which case the text is ambiguous -- applying the rule against surplusage is, absent other indications, inappropriate." Lamie v. Office of United States Trustee, 540 U.S. 526 (2004).