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This item was in my news feed today, but perplexes me.

Some U.S. Federal courts are perplexed by the following legal list about sentencing:

(1) the defendant does not have'
(A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding
any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense,
as determined under the sentencing guidelines;
(B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the
sentencing guidelines; and
(C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined
under the sentencing guidelines;

I find it odd that so many are confused by what looks like straightforward logic:
person does not have A, B, and C.

What am I missing here?

=== links ===
The Supreme Court will hear a case with a lot of 'buts' & 'ifs' over the meaning of 'and'
"Federal courts across the country disagree about whether the word, as it is used in a bipartisan 2018 criminal justice overhaul, indeed means 'and' or whether it means 'or.' Even an appellate panel that upheld a longer sentence called the structure of the provision 'perplexing.'"
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-mandatory...

snip from "First Step Act of 2018".

(B) by striking paragraph (1) and inserting the following:
''(1) the defendant does not have'
''(A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding
any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense,
as determined under the sentencing guidelines;
''(B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the
sentencing guidelines; and
''(C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined
under the sentencing guidelines;''; and
(C) by adding at the end the following:
''Information disclosed by a defendant under this subsection may
not be used to enhance the sentence of the defendant unless the
information relates to a violent offense.''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:

https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/s756/BILLS-115s...


Proper Semicolon Usage for Lawyers
Semicolons are perhaps best used in legal writing to connect independent clauses in a list, such as elements of statute or analytical framework; case citations; or when a list has one or more items that includes an "and," or an "or."
https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/strategist/prop...

In this forum, dashes get replaced by single quotes:

This is a dash '

This is a single quote '

This is a double quote "

In this forum, dashes get replaced by single quotes:

This is a dash '


That's why I use ..... where I'd normally use an M dash.

In this forum, dashes get replaced by single quotes:

Really? Let's check... This is a dash: -
(this show up as a dash in preview mode, let's see what happens upon posting)

In this forum, dashes get replaced by single quotes:

Really? Let's check... This is a dash: -
(this show up as a dash in preview mode, let's see what happens upon posting)


It's the double dash'that I think is replaced by a single quote mark.

And doing 3 dashes in succession'-produces a single dash and a single quote mark.

It's the double dash'that I think is replaced by a single quote mark.

What's a double dash?

1. Double dash (two dashes in a row, typed direct from keyboard key): --

2. "Longdash" (not on keyboard but inserted as a symbol using Windows' Windows key+"." dialog): '

3. A bunch of different dash-looking symbols also inserted using the Windows key+"." dialog:

' - ' ' −

Or does this have to do with an auto-correct feature that replaces successive typed double dashes with a longer dash?

All right then, replying to my just prior post, preview mode didn't show the conversion of a "long dash" symbol to a single quote, but the actual post does the conversion ('''''''). I'm sure that's fixable should Manlobbi deem it worthwhile.

All right then, replying to my just prior post, preview mode didn't show the conversion of a "long dash" symbol to a single quote, but the actual post does the conversion ('''''''). I'm sure that's fixable should Manlobbi deem it worthwhile.

------------------

Man this is complicated and tedious. All these permutations of what gets translated to what.

Why not a simple what you type is what is shown when posted, with one exception, "If what you type is not displayable, then it is replaced with some character string such as "<undefined char>" ".

The fact this is not done must have a reason rooted in the peculiarities of web site programming, something I admit I know nothing about.

Why not a simple what you type is what is shown when posted, with one exception, "If what you type is not displayable, then it is replaced with some character string such as "<undefined char>" ".

And I'd add that that should also be exactly what you see in preview mode as well as when posted. No exceptions.

The fact this is not done must have a reason rooted in the peculiarities of web site programming, something I admit I know nothing about.

Or more likely it's rooted in the fact that Manlobbi used the former TMF forum code as a base and hasn't modified it to handle this flaw. There's no fundamental reason it can't be fixed. It's just code.

I suspect the confusion around single quotes and double-quotes is triggered by "regular expressions" in the JavaScript logic that are checking for possible security threats that can stem from hackers injecting malicious code by "escaping" it via character sequences. The logic handling post submission runs your message text through these regular expressions to disable any sequences that might result in SQL injections, etc. when the form submits your post to the web server.

I noticed something else on these shrewdm boards a while back in a simliar vein after simplifying HTML from a blog post to be compatible with the formatting allowed here but now can't remember what it was.

The new boards on TMF have some weird issues as well. If you try to use a line of equals signs to highlight a block of text, something in TMF's new formatting converts it to an HTML bold tag. Typing this

==================
This
That
Those
==================

This is regular text again.

results in the first equals line and the three items being bold, no closing equals line then regular text for "This is regular text again."


WTH

There are security issues that can require character substitution. And there are different character sets and fonts that can affect how characters are displayed.

The dash substitution seems to have been fixed, or I am doing something differently. There are 4 different symbols:

This is a - hyphen.
This is a − minus.
This is a ' en dash.
This is a ' em dash.

This is how they show up when using pre tags:

  name   symbol  ascii  double  triple  quad
hyphen     -       45     --      ---   ----
 minus     -       63     --      ---   ----
en dash    '      150     ''      '''   ''''
em dash    '      151     ''      '''   ''''

(The pre tag is used for preformatted text that is displayed in a fixed-width font.)

And this is without the pre tags:
is single double triple quad .
is - -- --- ---- .
is − −− −−− −−−− .
is ' '' ''' '''' .
is ' '' ''' '''' .


==== links ====
"An (unspaced) em dash or a spaced en dash can be used to mark a break in a sentence"
"An en dash, but not an em dash, indicates spans or differentiation, where it may replace "and", "to", or "through""
"In informal contexts, a hyphen-minus (-) is often used as a substitute for an en dash, as is a pair of hyphen-minuses (--) for an em dash, because the hyphen-minus symbol is readily available on most keyboards. The autocorrection facility of word-processing software often corrects these to the typographically correct form of dash."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash

"This essay introduces the basics of hyphens, minus signs, en dashes, and em dashes in one easy lesson."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hyphens_an...

Well, it looked fixed in Preview mode. Looks like em dash and en dash get replaced by single quote. I will try to remember to modify my posts to use hyphens.

Or more likely it's rooted in the fact that Manlobbi used the former TMF forum code as a base and hasn't modified it to handle this flaw.

Just for an accurate record, not a single line of code was taken from anywhere. This forum was programmed by myself alone, and from scratch (using an "old fashioned" approach with a text editor).

The sql storage has some strange problems with just some character encodings (the sql table has the correct encoding instructions which I use routinely elsewhere, and furthermore all encodings worked perfectly earlier, but the problem arose when changing the server after several months, even keeping the same MySQL version).

Please for now tolerate some of the extended characters not rendering, I will solve all eventually. Thank you!

- Manlobbi

Just for an accurate record, not a single line of code was taken from anywhere. This forum was programmed by myself alone, and from scratch (using an "old fashioned" approach with a text editor).

Bravo, and thank you for the correction.

To answer my own OP question about the language:

(1) the defendant does not have --
(A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding
any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense,
as determined under the sentencing guidelines;
(B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the
sentencing guidelines; and
(C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined
under the sentencing guidelines;

This language is ambiguous. There are no clear parentheses, and so people put the parentheses in different places. The use of NOT makes the implied parentheses placement important. Results of a survey:
60% thought it meant not (A, B, and C)
40% thought it meant (not A, not B, and not C)

There are parenthetical phrases that could be used. For example, "the defendant does not have all of the following:" . Or even better, the use of negatives could be avoided. For example:

(1) the defendant:
(A) has less than 5 criminal history points, excluding
any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense,
as determined under the sentencing guidelines;
(B) has zero prior 3-point offenses, as determined under the
sentencing guidelines; or
(C) has zero prior 2-point violent offenses, as determined
under the sentencing guidelines;

This also applies to computer programming and goals. Negative variable names often lead to buggy code. Negative goals are more difficult to focus on.

=== links ===
Pulsifer v. United States
Docket Number: 22-340
Date Argued: 10/02/23
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/...

Mistake 7: Setting "Negative" Goals
"Another example of a negative goal is to 'stop staying late at work.' A positive way to rephrase this is to 'spend more time with family.' Negative goals are emotionally unattractive, which makes it hard to focus on them. Reframe any negative goals so that they sound positive: you may be surprised by the difference this makes!"
https://www.mindtools.com/aen9l5z/eight-common-goa...

"Avoid negative variable names. They make code harder to read."
https://davej.io/2018/05/negative-naming.html

Effective Use Of The Hyphen, En Dash, And Em Dash In Legal Writing
"Differences in punctuation, including use of a hyphen rather than an em dash, can significantly affect the meaning of statutes, regulations, contractual provisions, or other legal documents."
https://www.fedbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/...

=== note ===
The language can be structured in different ways. x1 and x2 are equivalent. y1 and y2 are equivalent. Moving NOT inside parenthesis changes 'and' to 'or' .

x1 = not (A or C)
x2 = (not A and not C)

y1 = not (A and C)
y2 = (not A or not C)

There are two root problems at work...

Problem #1 is that language doesn't really have an agreed-upon set of parsing rules like the PEMDAS rules of mathematics. In math, PEMDAS tells you when evaluating an equation with ambiguous sequencing where the prioritization of multiplication and division over addition and subtraction isn't enough to resolve the ambiguity, then the equation should be evaluated in the following order:

1) Parenthesis
2) Exponents
3) Multiplication
4) Division
5) Addition
6) Substraction

Problem #2 is that the people WRITING laws likely lack the sophistication to understand any such level of sophistication that could eliminate ambiguity and eliminating ambiguity may actally interfere with their intent in crafting the language in the first place. Most legislation at the state and federal level isn't written by elected Representatives or Senators. It's written by staff after being spoon-fed to them by special interst lobbyists. A key goal of many proposed bills is to hide the fingerprints of who WROTE the law as a means to obscure who might benefit from the resulting law.

Reading most bills that are altering existing state or federal code is a maddening exercise. Rather than stating that new bill SB 1234 will strike existing State Code X section 5 part III and replace it with "THIS", many bills surgically describe in English how existing clauses in an existing law will be modified word by word or phrase by phrase. The result is that anyone READING that new bill gets no coherent summary of the new final language will say in its complete context. If you want that detail, you will have to pull out the existing code, print it out, put it next to the bill, do your own markup then see if you understand and support the result. Or you ask your staffer to tell you if you should vote for it and go to a campaign dinner with that extra time you gained back.


WTH

In the 100 minutes of discussion in this Supreme Court case yesterday, the words 'logic' and 'parenthesis' were never said. In contrast, 'em dash' was said 15 times.

count      word
  0       logic
  0    parenthesis
  13     grammar
  15     em dash
  18     language

The English language is imprecise and ambiguous. Common sense is used to figure out meaning, and sometimes people disagree on what a sentence means. Maybe this is a feature not a bug. I'm fine with this approach to the law, but prefer using logic myself because I am more comfortable with math than with grammar.

But this particular law seems to be a grammatical mistake, and the Supreme Court justices struggled to find the meaning. Congress should just fix the law. One version uses 'or' and an alternate version uses 'and'. Vote for one or the other.

"JUSTICE ALITO: Well, just out of curiosity, I wonder if I can ask you a question about how you think language works in general. Let's just forget about special rules that apply to statutory interpretation for a moment and just talk about how language works in general and your understanding of that. If I say something and it's ambiguous and you're trying to figure out whether I mean A or B, to what degree do you take into account whether A or B makes more sense?"
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argume...

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