Revisionist History--Season 3

I'm a fan of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, together with the get-go episode of this flavour is virtually the punctuation of the Constitution. More specifically, the episode discusses a paper by Michael Stokes Paulsen together with Vasan Kesavan, which argues that the Texas Legislature has the ability to subdivide the country into upward to 4 novel states because Congress gave its consent to that activity when Texas was admitted to the Union inwards 1845. (Talk virtually the potential for partisan gerrymandering!)

There are several other fascinating points inwards the podcast. One is that Gladwell spends a lot of fourth dimension talking virtually the punctuation inwards the Constitution without considering the possibility that the rules of grammer were dissimilar inwards the eighteenth century. I don't know if they were inwards a meaningful way, but the supposition inwards the episode is that nosotros should empathise the run of commas, semicolons, etc. equally they are used now. Why is that?

Another Easter Egg is that Gladwell points out that the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, which was ratified inwards 1971 (when punctuation rules were presumably like to our own) read literally says that anyone 18 or older is a citizen of the United States. Here is the Section One of that amendment:

"The correct of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of historic menstruum or older, to vote, shall non move denied or abridged past times the the States or whatsoever State on describe of piece of occupation organisation human relationship of age.

Read gramatically, the clause "who are 18 years of historic menstruum or older" is defining "citizens of the United States." The text should read "The correct of the States citizens who are 18 years of historic menstruum or older" or "The correct of citizens of the the States who are 18 years of historic menstruum or older"  In other word, at that topographic point should move no commas around the relevant clause. Of course, this is only the zillionth illustration of why nosotros don't read legal texts literally because the drafters are oftentimes sloppy fifty-fifty when the pregnant is clear from the background context. (The 26th Amendment was non trying to redefine citizenship.)

The podcast is definitely worth your time, if for no other ground than that Gladwell praises police review articles.