MIN/1996/05
Minute Concerning Clause 2 of PRO/1979/06
- Kind:
- Minutes
- Date:
- May 1996
- Origin:
- House meeting, Karst House. Cited by both parties to the dispute.
- Access:
- Open.
The minute that appears to settle the comma and does not. Fifteen years old at the time and thirty years old now, with no application yet.
KARST HOUSE — HOUSE MEETING MIN/1996/05
14 May 1996. Present: 19. In the chair: the steward.
4. CLAUSE 2 OF PRO/1979/06.
The clause reads: 'the house shall keep the record, and the person,
entire.'
The first reading takes 'the person' as a second object of 'keep':
the house keeps the record and keeps the person. The second reading
takes the commas as parenthetical: the house keeps the record, and
the person remains entire, and is kept by nobody.
The 1981 translation adopted the second reading because Slovene will
not hold the ambiguity and a choice was unavoidable. The translator's
note of 1981 says so and does not claim that the choice was correct.
The meeting heard two papers. It was observed that the second reading
is the one the house has in fact acted on for fifteen years, in that
the house has never once behaved as though it kept a person.
RESOLVED: that the house record that its practice is settled and its
reading is not.
[Marginal note in another hand: 'which is the whole argument.']
5. THE STOVE. Deferred.
Reconciled with the Common Record
Both parties cite the resolution. The first reading's advocates cite 'its reading is not'; the second reading's advocates cite 'its practice is settled'. The stewardship has twice declined to rule, most recently in 2018, on the ground that clause 2 has never had to be applied to an actual person and a ruling in the abstract would be worse than the ambiguity.
Catalogued at the North House · reproduction permitted for study · redactions are not itemised