Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

There is a thought around that language and punctuation is – or at least should be – marked by hard-and-fast rules.

While I understand that notion, I tend to favor my own rules, which could be called idiosyncrasies.

Here are a few:

• Make the word Democratic into Democrat

Why?  Well, too often political figures who called themselves Democrats weren’t interested in being democratic.  They wanted their way or the highway.  So, now we have Donald Trump getting even.

• Always spell out, not abbreviate, such words as the month of the year, titles representative and senator, and the names of states.

Would only take as few more keystrokes to install this clarity.

• Never split infinitives, such as in:

From The Washington Post…”Trump is using a little-known law to criminally charge migrants who fail to register presence with the government.”

Should have been “to charge criminally…”

Or, from The Atlantic Magazine…”For the second in less than a month, Trump has used law enforcement to directly target Congress.”

Should have been “to target directly Congress.”

And, from the Oregonian newspaper…”In both cases, the initial extradition denial turned political, prompting the governor to personally intervene.”

Should have been “to intervene personally.”

Avoiding splitting infinitives makes language stronger.

• Use the singular modifier, no matter how bad it sounds on occasion.

As in Atlantic Magazine which recently ran this sentence:  But none of the structural contradictions in the bill have gone away.”  The verb should have been “has,” not “have,” though, I admit, the accurate word does sound bad.

Or, this quote from another national newspaper as it wrote about clients of a health plan:  “Many of their clients are on the Oregon Medicaid plan.”  It should have read “many of its clients…”

And, this quote from the Salem Statesman newspaper:  “The Oregon Government Ethics Commission based their own investigation and fine on the evidence it had from an interview with Marks where he admitted to diverting and purchasing a single $329.99-bottle of rare Pappy Van Winkle 23 bourbon.

The sentence should have read “based its investigation….”

• Avoid phrases that don’t make sense.

From Salem Reporter:  “The protest officially began at noon and ended at 3 p.m. Saturday, but hundreds were already gathered along Center Street and clustered around a number of informational booths and resource tents before 12 p.m.”

Think about it for just a second – it’s impossible “to center around” something. 

The same problem exists with a televised ad for a financial management company, Corian.  The language says Corian “centers around” its clients.  Impossible.