Showing posts with label current events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label current events. Show all posts

Thursday, November 17, 2011

BA's Corner: English Please?

I received a "Breaking News" email alert the other day that struck me. It said:

“New York Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman has ruled not to extend a temporary restraining order that prevents the eviction of protesters who were encamped at Zuccotti Park, long considered a home base for Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.”

Honestly, can you read that once and understand what's going on?  Who writes this legal stuff?  If I'm going to be married to a lawyer, I better practice translating these legal quotes into English.  Let's see if I can follow the logic on this one....

  1. People are doing something that some people think is wrong.
  2. People are protesting those people doing that thing that some people think is wrong.
  3. People are trying to evict the people protesting the people that are doing the thing that some people think is wrong.
  4. People are trying to prevent people from evicting the people protesting the people that are doing the thing that some people think is wrong.
  5. People are trying to temporarily restrain people from preventing people from evicting the people protesting the people that are doing the thing that some people think is wrong.
  6. A judge has now said that he won’t allow people to try to temporarily restrain people from preventing people from evicting the people protesting the people that are doing the thing that some people think is wrong any more.

So I still don’t know what’s going on….I’ll have to read it again.

<Reading again>

Ok, I think I figured this out.  We’re going to allow people to prevent people from evicting the protesters, right? Did I get it?

So we’re going to allow the protests. Alright, carry on….