The KellyGram

Wisdom and Wit About the Wonderful and Often Wacky World of Words

Published by Bob Kelly

Resident Wordsmith and Quotemeister

WordCrafters, Inc.

www.wordcrafters.info

Providing the Right Word for Speakers, Writers, Ministry Leaders, Business Executives and Just Plain Folks – since 1979!

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Volume 6 – Number 10 October 2008

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Welcome to Issue 70 of The KellyGram!

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It didn't get much fanfare, but just a few days ago (9/17), our nation celebrated Constitution Day, marking the 221^st anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. It was on that date in 1787, in Philadelphia, after four months of meeting behind locked doors to draft the Constitution, that 39 of the original 55 delegates affixed their signatures to that remarkable document, which eventually became the model for the constitutions of more than one hundred other countries.

Of those delegates, the oldest, at age 81, was Benjamin Franklin. Although he never held a major elective office in the young nation, he was among its most influential founding fathers, and remains perhaps the most quoted of those distinguished men.

One of my favorite volumes in my collection of quotations is titled Great Quotes from Great Leaders, published in 2007 by Simple Truths, LLC. A beautiful coffee table edition, it includes 75 photographs and more than 400 quotations from 32 of the world's great leaders, men and women representing the worlds of government and the military, religion and philanthropy, sports and business. It seems fitting that author Peggy Anderson began this book with 19 selections from the pen of none other than Benjamin Franklin.

For a preview of this beautiful book, check out this short, three-minute movie of Great Quotes from Great Leaders, by clicking on the following link:

http://www.simpletruths.com/a.aspx?af=1082&mo=GQGL.

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In This Issue:

Fun with Words
The Quote Corner (U.S. Constitution)
Leaving Readers Dangling and Confused
Smile Awhile
Odds and Ends
The Last Word

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FUN WITH WORDS

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Test your knowledge of our Constitution by marking the following statements as either true or false.

1) The Constitution includes 10 "Articles." T F

2) Since its adoption, there have been 27 Amendments to the Constitution. T F

3) The first 10 Amendments are designated as the Bill of Rights. T F

4) Only one of the Amendments has ever been repealed. T F

5) The doctrine of "separation of church and state" is stated in the First Amendment. T F

You'll find the correct answers elsewhere in this issue.

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THE QUOTE CORNER (U.S. Constitution)

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Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.
John Adams

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.
Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black

It is my belief that there are "absolutes" in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant and meant their prohibitions to be "absolutes."
Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
Benjamin Franklin

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition,
Thomas Jefferson

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.
James Madison

No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not"' employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.
Edmund A. Opitz

Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals—that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government—that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’s protection against the government.
Ayn Rand

As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to "do what the people want," instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
Daniel Webster

Many law professors, and others who hold contempt for our Constitution, preach that the Constitution is a living document. Saying that the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don’t have a Constitution. For rules to mean anything, they must be fixed.
Walter Williams

(Note: These quotations are taken from our collection of more than 400 published volumes of quotations and 1.5 million entries. If you're looking for some quotes on virtually any subject, send us an email at bob@kellygram.com, or call us at 480-895-7617. Or, if you have a quote topic you'd like us to feature in an upcoming issue, email it to us and we'll get it on the schedule.)

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LEAVING YOUR READERS DANGLING – AND CONFUSED

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There's perhaps no quicker way to confuse your readers than by the use of dangling or misplaced modifiers. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines a dangling modifier as a word or phrase "that appears from its position to modify an element of the sentence other than the one it was intended to modify." The results can often be confusing and/or amusing.

For example, Random House offers this sentence: "Plunging hundreds of feet into the gorge, we saw Yosemite Falls." Instead of modifying Yosemite Falls, the opening clause incorrectly modifies "we." Simply moving the clause from the beginning of the sentence to the end would convey the intended meaning.

Another example, from Strunk and White's classic, The Elements of Style: "I saw the trailer peeking through the window." In this case, starting this sentence with the modifying clause would eliminate the problem.

The late Groucho Marx was a master at using dangling modifiers to get some laughs. Consider this example from the 1930 Marx Brothers film, Animal Crackers: "One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know."

In the August 30, 2008 issue of his excellent ezine, World Wide Words, Michael Quinion includes a wedding announcement sent to him by a subscriber. It reads: "Amber was escorted by her father wearing a strapless silk wedding gown designed by Marianne Lanting carrying a tropical floral bouquet." Quinion adds: "Quick question: which of the three of them was holding the flowers?" (I'm sure dear old Dad looked smashing in that strapless gown.)

For a free subscription to Michael's outstanding weekly ezine, visit www.worldwidewords.org.

Proper punctuation is also an important part of clear writing. In the September 18, 2008 issue of her ezine, Word Tripper of the Week, my friend and colleague Barbara McNichol reports on National Punctuation Day, held this year on September 24. She quotes National Punctuation Day founder Jeff Rubin: "Punctuation counts. A misplaced comma can alter the meaning of a sentence."

One example I often use in my writing workshops is this sentence: "A woman without her man is nothing." But notice how a bit of punctuation conveys the exact opposite meaning: "A woman: without her, man is nothing."

To learn more about National Punctuation Day, "A celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotes, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons and the ever-mysterious ellipsis," visit www.nationalpunctuationday.com.

To subscribe to Word Tripper of the Week, and to order a free copy of Barbara's Word Trippers e-book, visit www.BarbaraMcNichol.com.

For some amusing examples of how the lack of punctuation can cause unintended results, see our Smile Awhile feature below.

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SMILE AWHILE

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In its June 2004 issue, Reader's Digest offered some examples of the mischief missing commas can cause. Under the headline "Comma – Tose," these submissions from readers included the following:

"Get tips on how to keep yourself safe from Trooper First Class Ronald Yanica of the Maryland State Police."

"Authorities said the robber is a 6 foot tall, white male with a beard weighing approximately 220 pounds."

"My husband asked me to read an essay he wrote for a class …detailing his goals following retirement. Although quite good, one sentence did leap out at me: 'After retiring my wife, the kids and I plan to …'"

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ODDS AND ENDS

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Back Issues:

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Comments/Questions:

Your comments and questions are always welcome. Please contact us at bob@kellygram.com, or call Bob Kelly at (480) 895-7617.

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Answer to Fun with Words:

Here are the answers to this month's puzzle:

1) False. There are seven "Articles" in the Constitution.

2) True

3) True

4) True

5) False. The term appears nowhere in any of the Constitution's Articles or Amendments, but is a myth fostered and promoted by such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union. In fact, the only reference to religion anywhere in the Constitution is in the first 16 words of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

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THE LAST WORD

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Editor's Note: The following is what the late William H. Rehnquist had to say about the "separation" issue. The distinguished jurist served on the U.S. Supreme Court for more than 33 years, 14 years as an Associate Justice (1972 to 1986), and 19 years as Chief Justice (1986 to 2005).

"The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based upon bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. ... The greatest injury of the ‘wall’ notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intention of the drafters of the Bill of Rights."

(U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist)

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