When constitutional amendments run outta space
Ever gone down a rabbit hole? It happened to us the other day. And this one was a doozy. There we were, chasing fireflies through the meadow at night — not very smart, but since they don’t light up during the daytime how else are you supposed to catch them — and next thing we know, rabbit hole city, complete with sprained ankles and crutches for the next year. Which landed Boss Dog in the doghouse big time. He's supposed to lead us around those things.
Not into them.
But the rabbit holes you really have to watch out for are the ones that prove so interesting you forget all about the task at hand. Like the time we ran across “abacot.” Though we’d never seen the word in print, everybody knows it’s something Warren Beatty wears. Carly Simon said so.
Your scarf, it was abacot.
So imagine our shock when we discovered it was a made-up word. A typo someone added to the dictionary 300 years ago and supposedly a synonym for a hat. No way was that true. We’d seen Beatty’s, and his was always strategically dipped below one eye. Not slung around his neck. But it was enough to get us diving down the phony baloney rabbit hole. Where we found not only abacots, but also caribows, foupes, and dords. That last one always makes us smile.
Some of our closest friends are dords.
But not everyone reacts that lightheartedly whenever they chance across some supposedly fabricated words. In fact, one group raised quite the ruckus after flyspecking a recently circulated petition to amend the state constitution. You can’t have things like “factsofthecase” or “decisionsaboutallmatters” enshrined in the state’s most cherished document, they huffed. Constitutions are supposed to be prim and proper.
Not filled with references to “soft he case” and “tall matters.”
Nonsense, retorted the petition-backers. Hundreds of thousands of valid signatures proved people were able to figure out what it really meant. And even if they didn’t, it was clearly no big deal, because they’d signed it anyway. Nevertheless, the naysayers convinced enough members of the Board of State Canvassers to buy into their put-the-spaces-where-they-belong argument to initially keep it off the fall ballot. Because this is the constitution we’re talking about. And you can’t let people run around willy-nilly, filling it with all sorts of jibber-jabber. Imagine what would have happened had the Founding Fathers ever ratified something that started out “Wethepeople.” Putting “wet he people” in charge?
Why, we’d be under totalitarian rule by now for sure.
Oddly enough, that never happened with the U.S. Constitution. Even though some words in the original handwritten documents really were strung together without the requisite spaces, nobody went ballistic over it. Nor did they get worked into a frenzy when “Pennsylvania” in one signed copy was spelled with one “n.” Or when Congress messed up and inadvertently added — or deleted — an “s” or two in some of the later amendments to it.
So we’re plenty geeked that the Michigan Supreme Court insisted the question be certified to the ballot, and it’s got nothing to do with the subject matter at hand. There are plenty of arguments to be made about it — pro or con — over the next seven-plus weeks. And if one of them involves putting argle-bargle like “includedbutnotlimitedto” into the state constitution, then have at it. The voters are always right. Even when they get it wrong. Take it from us. There’s nothing to fear from letting wet he people decide. But wet she people? Then all bets are off.
They’re not even mentioned in the Constitution.
Talk Back with Doug Spade and Mike Clement is heard every Saturday morning from 9 a.m. to noon Eastern Time on Buzz 102.5 FM and online at www.dougspade.com and www.lenconnect.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Talk Back: When constitutional amendments run outta space
