Not so perfect

Attractive Nuisance has gradually resigned herself to the fact that not everyone cares about the English language as much as she does. In her more militant youth, she went around adding apostrophes to signs that had a few too few, and glowering at people who told her that they "could care less" about something and then expected her to respond as though they had just said something intelligible. Memorably, she once terminated a relationship after her man-friend pronounced himself "really into spontanuity."

In recent years, though, A-Nu has mellowed a little. Just the other day she walked past a sign advertising "taco's and burrito's" without even needing to pop a Xanax. When someone concludes a sentence with "eck-cetra," A-Nu now nods understandingly rather than proffering a cough drop. And if people really feel the need to fucking split their infinitives, A-Nu has more important things to do than to try and stop them.

But despite her increasing tolerance for the linguistic shortcomings of the population at large, A-Nu is unwilling to let the judiciary off the grammatical hook. And one thing that's been bothering her recently is that so many judges feel compelled to encumber absolute adjectives with comparative and superlative baggage.

Allow A-Nu to provide an example. Things are either perfect or imperfect. Nothing can be "more perfect," "so perfect," "really perfect," "absolutely perfect," or "the most perfect." It's binary: you either got that 180 on the LSAT, or else you didn't.

Yet, dissenting in Planned Parenthood of Southeast Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 975 (1992), Chief Justice Rehnquist runs afoul of this rule: "[I]t is unrealistic to assume that every husband-wife relationship is (1) so perfect that this type of truthful and important communication will take place as a matter of course, or (2) so imperfect that, upon notice, the husband will react selfishly, violently, or contrary to the best interests of his wife." If the former C.J. were not deceased (note, readers, that A-Nu does not refer to him as "so very deceased" or "totally deceased") she would likely have a bit more to say. But even A-Nu believes that dead legal luminaries deserve a modicum of respect, and anyway, she thinks his helpful (albeit inadvertent) example requires no further explanation.

The rule of absolutes applies in all sorts of other situations. No matter how wacked-out a party's argument is, judges should refer to it as "unique" -- not "so unique," "very unique," or "the most unique this Court has ever encountered in its three decades on the bench." Because that argument is either one-of-a-kind, or else it's not. The same goes for all things pure, universal, immortal, certain, fatal, essential, final, and meaningless. And was Justice Thomas' silence on the bench this term "so unbroken"? No! It was just plain unbroken!! Unless, of course, he went and said something while A-Nu wasn't paying attention (just like last time, that death penalty case back in February 2006) -- in which case the aforementioned silence wasn't unbroken at all.