Defendant: Norman Goodman, County Clerk and Clerk of the Supreme Court, New York.
Count 1: Usage of an apostrophe in the commission of a plural noun, a misdemeanor.
Count 2: Grammatical negligence with regard to a word essential to one’s profession.
Count 3: Distribution of grammatical malfeasance to the general public at taxpayer expense.
Report: Officer’s wife was “randomly” selected to receive a Juror Qualification Questionnaire, mere weeks after acquiring U.S. Citizenship. Months later, Officer was also “randomly” selected for the same questionnaire. During routine perusal of the correspondence the grammatical malfeasance was discovered and promptly scanned.
Fine: $388 and exemption from being summoned to Jury Duty for four years, because Officer sits around and never gets picked anyway.
Brian Sack
I started Banterist in 2003 after this conversation with my cat. It led to all sorts of good things.
Whenever I stumble across one of your Grammar Cop posts I like to see if I can come up with a context in which the “error” you point out would be correct.
There ain’t nothing coming to me this time. Fine him.
I’m guessing if you corrected the mistake on the form and sent it back, you’d get lots more opportunities to find more such errors.
The error that concerns me is actually in the first paragraph (in blue). The line reads, “If you did not return it or qualified by phone or web, we would appreciate it if you would complete the questionnaire again.”
Ugh.
What about the last line? “Return questionnaire back in enclosed envelope”
Where else would I return it beside back? The Department of Redundancy Department?
I wonder if marking this up and returning it would result in being excused, or being assigned to a six month trial.
Re #1. Did you consider the Juror may have an at that can be contacted?
I love the fact that one of the Google ads at the top of the page is for the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association, and it involves a “conference” (read: vacation) on how to select juries :-)