Referendums in August on Fiovâ-Florencia merger

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

53RZ1, passed by the Ziu, states:

1. The Free Province of Fiôva and the Province of Florencia shall be replaced by a single Province comprising the cantons of Florencia, Cuféir and Las Inaltáns Maxhéstici.

2. This law shall come into effect only upon agreement between the Provincial Governments of Fiôva and Florencia upon a Constitution of the merged province, which shall include a name for the new Province, and the approval of that Constitution by a majority of the citizens of both Provinces (separately and jointly) in referendum.

The two Provincial Governments (both executive and legislative branches) have now agreed on such a constitution. Therefore I would like to formally request of the Secretary of State, Glüc da Dhi , that referendums be held for Fiova and Florencia citizens as foreseen in 53RZ1 s.2, beginning on August 1.

The question in these referendums will be:

Do you support the unification of Fiova and Florencia into a single province, under the Constitution at www.talossa.ca/iarneria.php?

If it passes in both provinces, then the merger will be completed, and the United Province of Iarnériâ will be born.

Thank you.

[Ián Tamorán S.H.]

Quick - and probably irrelevant - observation: is't the plural of Referendum 'Referenda'? No? <sigh> I must be getting old.... 

...and, yes, I have checked... I am getting old, and out of date with the language 

[Iac Marscheir]

Honestly, "referenda" feels more correct to me.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Jul 22, 2019 11:28:16 GMT -6 Iac Marscheir said:

Honestly, "referenda" feels more correct to me.

Yeah, but it's not, because "referendum" in Latin doesn't have a plural because it's a gerund, not a noun.

[Viteu Marcianüs]

Jul 22, 2019 15:42:37 GMT -6 Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN said:

Jul 22, 2019 11:28:16 GMT -6 Iac Marscheir said:

Honestly, "referenda" feels more correct to me.

Yeah, but it's not, because "referendum" in Latin doesn't have a plural because it's a gerund, not a noun.

Well, I'll be damned, I did not know this. And this is why I have trust issues.

From wiki:

'Referendum' is the gerundive form of the Latin verb refero, literally "to carry back" (from the verb fero, "to bear, bring, carry"[3] plus the inseparable prefix re-, here meaning "back"[4]). As a gerundive is an adjective,[5] not a noun,[6] it cannot be used alone in Latin, and must be contained within a context attached to a noun such as Propositum quod referendum est populo, "A proposal which must be carried back to the people". The addition of the verb sum (3rd person singular, est) to a gerundive, denotes the idea of necessity or compulsion, that which "must" be done, rather than that which is "fit for" doing. Its use as a noun in English is not considered a strictly grammatical usage of a foreign word, but is rather a freshly coined English noun, which follows English grammatical usage, not Latin grammatical usage. This determines the form of the plural in English, which according to English grammar should be "referendums". The use of "referenda" as a plural form in English (treating it as a Latin word and attempting to apply to it the rules of Latin grammar) is unsupportable according to the rules of both Latin and English grammar. The use of "referenda" as a plural form is posited hypothetically as either a gerund or a gerundive by the Oxford English Dictionary, which rules out such usage in both cases as follows:[7]

Referendums is logically preferable as a plural form meaning 'ballots on one issue' (as a Latin gerund,[8] referendum has no plural). The Latin plural gerundive 'referenda', meaning 'things to be referred', necessarily connotes a plurality of issues.[9]

It is closely related to agenda, "those matters which must be driven forward", from ago, to drive (cattle); and memorandum, "that matter which must be remembered", from memoro, to call to mind, corrigenda, from rego, to rule, make straight, those things which must be made straight (corrected), etc.


en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Etymology_and_plural_form

[Ian Plätschisch]

There’s a case to be made that “referenda” is correct in Talossan English given that the name of Article XX is “Referenda”

[King John]

Whether it's "referendums" (which makes my ears bleed) or "referenda", I've petitioned the Cort to enjoin them until such time as Florencia approves the proposed Constitution, as required by 53RZ1.

— John R

[Viteu Marcianüs]

Jul 25, 2019 12:00:52 GMT -6 King John said:

Whether it's "referendums" (which makes my ears bleed) or "referenda", I've petitioned the Cort to enjoin them until such time as Florencia approves the proposed Constitution, as required by 53RZ1.

— John R

It would be awesome if, in the time it took you to draft your petition, you spent a minute to appear in the pending action against you at talossa.proboards.com/thread/13469/petition-organicity-53rz4-53rz11-lex?page=1&scrollTo=165395. 

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Jul 25, 2019 11:56:43 GMT -6 King John said:

On 24 April 2019, the Seneschál posted on the Florencian Witt board a posting entitled “Merger Constitution Approved by Fiova” (http://talossa.proboards.com/thread/13360/merger-constitution-approved-fiova?page=1&scrollTo=165565).

Four weeks later, on 22 May 2019, Spencer Kerfoot, a member of the Nimlet, posted in that same thread a posting that said, in full:

I propose hereby a Resolution that...

1) the Nimlet endorse the foregoing Merger Constitution without amendment;

2) the Nimlet authorize a referendum of all Florencians, at which the same should elect to endorse a provincial merger with Fiova under such Constitution, or not; and

3) the various ballots of Florencians at the aforesaid referendum be submitted in good faith not later than the fourteenth day following the effectuation hereof, or not later than the sixth of June in the year 2019, whichever may be sooner.

It will be noted that this “Resolution” appeared in a thread that had been sitting for almost a month without any discussion. A reader of the Board would have to have been rather vigilant even to notice that S:reu Kerfoot’s proposal had been made.

The complete apathy of the Florencian Nimlet and voting populace is, of course, the reason why Gov. Colonel Mximo Carbonèl supports the merger proposal wholeheartedly. The King may think it a valid constitutional proposal that nothing happens unless people who only check the boards every two months or so can make it happen; I don't. In fact, the King could have opposed the merger constitution resolution at the time it was made, quibbled with its wording, etc etc. Why didn't he?

There is also nothing in the Florencian constitution specifying how a proposal is to be bought to the Nimlet. Other proposals were brought by mere posting on this board, as far as I can tell.

But even if its appearance on the Seneschál’s “Merger Constitution Approved” thread is held to have constituted an actual proposal in the Nimlet, the proposal was incomplete and invalid because it establishes no deadline for voting, an element required by the Constitution for any legislative proposal.

Not true. Cxhn. Açafat del Val communicated with me at the time he made this resolution, and he intended to say - and I hope he turns up to confirm this - that the deadline for voting on this resolution was two weeks. I suggested clearer language but he thought this language was sufficient. I'm not a citizen of Florencia, so I didn't stop him. No citizen of Florencia did so at the time either - not even the King.

I should also note that I communicated with the King about this very issue a few weeks ago, when the now-former Cunstavál expressed concern about whether the merger resolution was valid. He responded in what I considered at the time to be carefully ambiguous language which didn't answer my question. This is exactly the kind of bad faith that I've come to expect, unfortunately.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Witness the stunning logic here.

The whole impetus for the Iarneria merger was to deal with the breakdown of provincial government in Florencia (and its somnolence in Fiova) due to apathy.

The King's argument, in part, uses precisely that apathy to try to sabotage the process - no-one cared enough to vote against the merger resolution, so therefore the merger resolution is invalid, even though the Constitution of Florencia clearly states "no quorum".

As with the King's (overridden) veto of 53RZ13, it's clear that the King sees Talossa's constitution, laws and institutions as things that must be defended in and of themselves as having inherent (aesthetic? traditional?) value. And then we wonder why Talossa has problems with apathy - because there are several citizens (most of whom are in important places because of their activity 5-15 years ago) who only spring into life to stop anything changing.

[Seguxhameir d'Üc]

As I am neither a citizen of Florencia nor Fiova, I do not have a dog in this fight, but if the provincial constitution requires no quorum, could the provinces not simply directly poll the citizenry? Send out a simple survey with a brief and clear explanation of the question of merging and the reasons behind it and assess whether or not they wish to proceed to an official referendum on the question (and explain the ramifications)? This is perhaps too simplistic a solution, but certainly polling the citizenry about their desire for a referendum cannot run afoul of the law...

[King John]

Estimada Seneschal —

I would much prefer that you either do not try to restate my opinions, or else at least get them right.

"The King may think it a valid constitutional proposal that nothing happens unless people who only check the boards every two months or so can make it happen"? Please. The King *actually* thinks that it's a valid Constitutional principle that if the Constitution requires particular things to be done for legislation to pass, and they don't happen, the legislation hasn't passed. That's all.

I'm entirely happy to believe you, that S:reu Kerfoot "intended to say [...] that the deadline for voting on this resolution was two weeks". But he *didn't* say it, did he? And it's pretty clear that the Governor didn't think the deadline was two weeks, since he voted on it a month after it was proposed.

"No-one cared enough to vote against the merger resolution, so therefore the merger resolution is invalid"? I never said or implied (or believed) anything of the sort. Pure nonsense.

I didn't think my language, in emails to you, was "carefully ambiguous". (If you like, you have my permission to share the entire email thread between us.) I wrote, before I'd really studied the question,

The OrgLaw requires that this merger not be made "without the consent of that Province". That is, the separate Provinces exist until such time as the *Provinces* (as contrasted to the populations of the Provinces) consent; and an entity that has a Government and Constitution and legislative process acts, and expresses its consent, by its own established legislative mechanisms.

and later

As I remember, but I'm open to correction if I'm wrong, the Governor has nothing to do with legislation. The Nimlet submits a passed bill to the Cunstaval, and either the Cunstaval or the Crown has to approve it. I think.

It turns out my memory was partly right and partly wrong — it's the *Governor* who's supposed to submit the bill to the Cunstaval — which didn't happen, did it? But even if my words had been "carefully ambiguous", why would you be upset about that?   I certainly didn't try to mislead you, did I?

Restéu voastra,

John R

[Colonel Mximo Carbonèl]

Do you ever do something good for this country?
John?
Each time you come here is to vote CONTRA on something... VETOS a law or act like a kid who always cry to his mother...

Now you are the new cunstaval of Florencia...a seat empty for years by you good inactive action...That take me months to make you appointed somebody.
Now you're talking about the law... but I can just think about all the time you DONT FOLLOW THE LAW AND FAILED TO ACT IN TIME...

So I ask you HERE... can you sign the law of the Nimlet approved by me?

BTW I don't care about your opinion...
VETOS IT IF YOU WISH I JUST DON'T CARE YOU ARE THE REASON WHY TALOSSA IS BORING AGAIN...


Mximo

[Açafat del Val]

Jul 25, 2019 15:55:58 GMT -6 Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN said:

Not true. Cxhn. Açafat del Val communicated with me at the time he made this resolution, and he intended to say - and I hope he turns up to confirm this - that the deadline for voting on this resolution was two weeks. I suggested clearer language but he thought this language was sufficient. I'm not a citizen of Florencia, so I didn't stop him. No citizen of Florencia did so at the time either - not even the King.

I confirm my intentions and am rectifying my errors.