Could the Election Be Swung by the Passive Voice?
Also: A present for you for National Dictionary Day.
First things first: It’s October 16, so Happy National Dictionary Day!
Is it made up? Yes. But so are dictionaries. So let’s celebrate.
Today marks the 266th birthday of Noah Webster, and I know you said I didn’t have to get you anything, but …
From our production of The Angry Grammarian: A New Musical that closed just two weeks ago, here’s a studio recording of our ode to dictionaries (sorry, Webster—not yours): “Bring in Da Funk, Bring in Da Wagnalls”
You can preorder the full soundtrack here, and doing so gives you advance access to the first five tracks.
The Passive Voice, Actively Harming Our Elections
But what’s probably top of mind is the fact that we’re less than three weeks from Election Day, and here at Angry Grammarian National HQ in Pennsylvania, we have one obstinate state senator who’s working overtime to make sure things don’t go as smoothly as they might if he would just … do something.
Of course he’s saying it’s not his fault. And of course he’s using passive voice to pass the buck.
In a recent interview on the nonprofit Pennsylvania network PCN, Republican state Sen. Cris Dush, who chairs the State Government Committee—which has the power to implement some badly needed election reforms—said he’s not going to fix any of those problems before the election because of “the confusion that’s being caused.”
He didn’t mention that it’s his inaction that’s causing the confusion. Instead he used passive voice to absolve responsibility.
A short break from a nerdy grammar lesson to offer a helpful nerdy civics lesson.
In 2019, the Pennsylvania Legislature had a rare moment of bipartisan comity when it passed Act 77, which for the first time allowed no-excuse mail-in voting in the Keystone State. It proved especially useful when, a few months later, a pandemic flattened us and a lot of people decided they’d be more comfortable voting by mail than in person.
At the same time, Donald Trump decided mail-in ballots would be a useful bogeyman. He proved remarkably effective at convincing people that those ballots were not secure.
That suspicion paved the way for election week 2020: Voting happened on Tuesday, but—because mail-in ballots take longer to count—we didn’t get Pennsylvania’s results till Friday, and news outlets didn’t call the race till Saturday. Those few days’ difference were enough for Trump to plant every seed he needed for Jan. 6 and for the election denialism that persists four years later.
Since then, election administrators across Pennsylvania—both Republicans and Democrats, the people who actually make our elections safe, secure, free and fair—have begged the Legislature to allow what’s called precanvassing: a process that preps ballots to be counted more quickly.
But the bill to allow precanvassing has simply sat under Dush’s dush.
Were he to move the bill, we would get election results sooner—something he says he wants. But he’s run out the clock, and four years later, we’re facing the same inefficiencies that imperiled us in 2020.
Think anyone will try to exploit that?
When they do, you can bet there won’t be anything passive about it.
Copy Editors, Unsung Heroes: Now Even More Unsung! And Even More Heroes!
Most people know copy editors fix typos (like tihs).
Some people know copy editors fix style (like changing ten to 10).
Few people know copy editors fact-check.
At many publications, they are the last line of factual defense.
Who ever thought the 2024 election would be all about copy editors?
Donald Trump largely refuses to do interviews or debates unless the interviewers or moderators pledge not to correct his lies. JD Vance had the gall to whine about being fact-checked when he lied during the vice presidential debate.
As usual, it’s the fact-checkers saving democracy.
The fear of facts is, sadly, not new. Hard to believe it was 18 years ago that Stephen Colbert, in the guise of his right-wing Comedy Central character, stood inches from President George W. Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner and proclaimed, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
At the time, my brilliant then-colleague Jonathan Valania summed it up perfectly: “He rode the Trojan Horse of Truthiness right up to the president’s table and unleashed its hidden contents: a disinfecting dose of reality-based reality, thinly coated with irony for easier digestion, though impossible to swallow for those weaned on Fox News comfort food.”
I was then copyediting Philadelphia Weekly, where I led an army of fact-checking interns, all of whom we required to read extensive excerpts from Sarah Harrison Smith’s The Fact Checker’s Bible. Many of them went on to become accomplished reporters, using their fact-checking skills to hunt for truth in a forest of truthiness.
Lucky for us, many of them are still doing that work today, when it’s more needed than ever.
Grammer Grammar Calender Calendar
For anyone who saw The Angry Grammarian in Philadelphia, Pier Players Theatre Company is back this weekend with a murder mystery for Halloween … and many of the same performers, including Chelsea Cylinder, Abrham Bogale, Nina Vitek, Niamh Sherlock and Erin Coffman.
The Cafe Mocha Murders runs four shows only, October 17-20. Tickets here.
No grammar; only murder.
Punctuating the End: Grammar in the Wild
A lot of people forwarded this to me. So now I’ll share it with you.
via xkcd.