Not a solution

• Author: Ann Rider
• Pages: 6-6

JOURNAL PRAISE

I read the “Editor’s Note,”

January-February, page 1, that you

are moving to fewer issues. Just

wanted you to know that the Jo urna l

has improved 1,000 percent over

what it was. You are doing a really

good job. Thank you.

Brenda P. Murray

Washington, D.C.

‘NOT A SOLUTION’

While we appreciate the att en-

tion the Journ al has paid to t he issue

of people wrongfully i mprisoned or

otherwise held wit h no legal order

to detain and ag ree that a prison is

not the place for anyone in psychi-

atric crisis (“Breakdow n,” January-

February, page 37), we believe that

there are better a lternatives to add-

ing psychiatric hospital b eds. The

National Association for R ights

Protection and Advoca cy is a group

of attorneys, advoc ates, people with

psychiatric hist ories and others who

advocate for least res trictive services

and individuals’ r ight to make their

own treatment decisions.

There are more accurate in forma-

tion sources about the legal right s of

people with psychiatr ic diagnoses

than the Treatment Advocacy C enter.

Sources of more reliable data include

NARPA, the National Disabilit y

Rights Network (the national non-

profi t membership organi zation

representing the network of con-

gressionally mand ated, legally based

disability right s agencies) and the

Bazelon Center for Mental Health

L a w .

Adding more hospital beds is not a

solution to the problems mentioned

in the article. The rea l problem is

often a lack of a ordable housing

and insu cient fu nding for home-

and community-based suppor ts and

services for indiv iduals, including

peer support and alternat ives, such

as the Hearing Voices Network.

Ann Rider

Tacoma, Washington

GARNER RULES

Some of what Bryan A.

Garner’s article “Plain Talk ,”

January-February, page 24,

advocates are of quest ionable

utility. A convoluted sentence

that expresses an i nherently

complicated concept can some-

times be simplifi e d only with a loss

of critical deta il or by replacing one

long sentence with many short sen-

tences in order to defi ne terms and

to cover all the quali fi cations and

exceptions. Pick your poison, as a

very succinct stat ement goes.

This issue arise s in other fi elds as

well. Einstein’s theory of general rel-

ativity ca n be expressed in a very ele-

gant equation, one form of which is

Gµv + Λgµv = (8πG/c4)Tµv. But the

equation conveys no information

whatsoever without an unders tand-

ing of the meanings and signifi cance

of all those letters a nd symbols.

Rudolf Flesch’s fi nal point in

the article is troublesome. Since

there is no o cial arbiter of E nglish

grammar, usage and pronunciat ion,

Mr. Flesch posits that the governing

principle is majority rule. But there

is obviously no prac tical method

of polling everyone who speak s or

writes Engli sh, and even if there

were, the notion of a uniform

majority rule would be

misleading becau se devel-

opments occur over time

in di erent di rections, in

di erent reg ions, within

di erent dis tinct groups,

for di erent purpo ses.

In light of those consid-

erations, quizzes on pro-

nunciation have a “gotcha”

feel to them, since as long as there is

no loss of clarity, there is little pra c-

tical need to ca re which syllable is

stressed in the oral pronunciat ion of

a word. On the other hand, an idea’s

meaning can be muddled, a nd pre-

cision can be lost when tradit ional

rules of usage are broken or aban-

doned, as in Mr. Flesch’s example of

blithely getting rid of the subjunc-

tive. The sentence, “If I was the K ing

of England, a horse has six legs ,” is a

true statement, at leas t as a matter

of formal

logic, while, “If I were the K ing of

England, a horse would have six

legs,” is a highly dubious proposition.

Robert Kantowitz

Lawrence, New York

Letters

6 || ABA JOURNAL MARCH 2019

Letters to the Editor You may submit a let ter by email to abajourna l@

americanbar.org or vi a mail—Attn: Letter s, ABA Journal, 321 N . Clark St. Chica go, IL 60654.

Letters must concer n articles publis hed in the Journal. They may be edited for cl arity or space.

Be sure to include your nam e, city and state, an d email address.

PHOTOS BY WINN FUQUA PHOTOGRAPHY; SARA WADFORD

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

With regard to “Web 100,”

December, page 36, tha nk you

for increasing awareness of

human rights and imm igra-

tion law by adding RA ICES

[Refugee and Immigr ant

Center for Education and

Legal Serv ices] to your list of

best legal Twitter account s.

This organization is on the

front line, protecting t he

rights of families a nd chil-

dren! Thanks!

Jean Longwill

Portland, Oregon

Bryan Garner