Recently an email was released by one of our county commissioners that has been the subject of discussion locally. Our county hospital administrator had written that “There were no bonuses paid in 2014 and we expect no bonuses through this year”.
The hospital administrator did not use any adjectives to specify the type of year he was referring to. He did not write of a “light year”, or an “academic year”, or of a “fiscal year”. Absent the adjective we would read his words to mean the period starting January 1 and ending December 31.
If on Tuesday I say to you that I will not leave town until next week and then I leave on the very next day or Wednesday, you have every right to feel lied to. Just because I chose to play with words and start my week on Wednesday does not mean that I told the truth.
Unfortunately we have too many public officials that play word games with us instead of telling the truth.
In fact the problem is so widespread that on January 5, 2010 our feral congress passed H.R. 946, the Plain Writing Act of 2010. Unfortunately the act does not apply here unless you want to go down the path of either the “commerce clause” or some other theory that would make it applicable here.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I think you asked somewhere for examples of these types of “playing with words.” One that comes to mind is when Pickett was going all over the state pushing for Proposition 1 in the recent election. As head of the transportation committee (or whatever it’s called) he had an interest in increasing the funds they have to work with, of course, in the “best interests” of the state. He said something like ” we won’t be taking anything from the rainy day fund.” Literally that was correct, but, in fact, he was lying because the deal involved taking half of the money that goes into the rainy day fund before it went in there! So Prop 1 passed and now he has more money to play with. .
LikeLike
Nothing in the email question about contract performance bonus….a fact…
LikeLike
please clarify. not sure I get your point. thanks.
LikeLike
Just like we have convenient “generic” language on “years”, now we have generic language on “bonuses.” Convenient argument, but sorry it doesn’t work.
LikeLike