Your views: Readers' letters

A comedy of commas

Let me know when the news media start advertising for human proofreaders. It's about time that reliance on computerised spellchecks and grammar checks by the printed media came to an end.

Some real "howlers" are making it into print. Here's a good one:

"A dog handler was seen hopping out of a police vehicle, which had a dog in the back, dressed in civilian clothing." ("Top spies hit Arrowtown", Chronicle, April 22). And no, the laughable error may not be what some readers first think.

It's too easy to read it like the dog was dressed in civilian clothing, thus prompting the question, "What was the dog handler wearing?". But in my humble opinion the presence of the two commas in the sentence could convey the meaning that the police vehicle was wearing civilian clothing. The question of what both dog handler and dog were wearing would still remain.

This was an extract from a NZME source. One ought to rely on its accuracy. Nevertheless, it would be churlish of me to assume that the report was literal, which might indicate the dog handler was a one-legged person, seeing as they had to "hop" out of the police car.

I mustn't get cocky, though. To borrow four words from Mark Dawson's editorial on literacy in the same Chronicle edition, a "correctly composed past participle" could fall on my head and I wouldn't recognise it.
STAN HOOD
Aramoho

Thank you, Ken

Chester Borrows, our retiring MP, questions my criticism of the National Party and its passing of a RMA Bill to place Maori on local bodies, and on April 20 Ken Mair supplied my answer. The Wanganui/Whanganui Land Settlement Negotiation Trust supplied the data as to why I am sceptical.

According to the article on page 3 of the Chronicle, the Settlement Trust says the "mandate was a vote of confidence" with a "95 per cent majority" but at the end of the article we are told the "mandate" is only "from 1232 of 4802 voters". If you do some simple arithmetic, you find that 95 per cent of 1232 is 1170.4, which is only 23.4 per cent of the eligible voters.

There is no way I want people on councils or any other body who regard less than 25 per cent of the voting electors as a "mandate". I especially don't want undemocratic, unelected representatives.

Our laws and consultation allow everyone a chance to be heard, no matter what their race or religion, and race-based legislation has no place in our democracy. As to the other changes in the RMA to speed things up, the Listener had an interesting article on how the changes to the building regulations to speed up/streamline house-building gave us the leaky homes that are still causing problems some 25-plus years later.

In my opinion, between the iwi participation arrangements and the speed-up to consents we can major expect problems. The issues that concern me are those of a functioning democracy that is actually fully representative, open and totally honest, and without massaged statistics.

TERRY O'CONNOR
Whanganui

Take a chill pill

Steve Baron has a short memory or is still seething over his rejection by the electorate.

Annette Main's council signed a contract to build the WWTP, a job that should have been left to the incoming council because of the controversy as to the best way forward. The new council won on the opinion that there were options that should be explored before a final decision. Annette's council knew there was every chance changes would be made, and took a sandbagging decision to sign.

Steve, you criticise David Bennett for claiming a bit of the credit for a low rate increase; you say you attend all council meetings and didn't see him do anything that could allow him to make such a claim for his group.

You should also realise that pressure is put on things outside the council chambers. The council just agrees or disagrees on what is eventually put forward, so you don't really know David's input.

Steve, you should do what the American Democrats and Jay Kuten should do: Take a chill pill.

G R SCOWN
Whanganui