[blml] Réf. : played or not?

[Jerry Fusselman]

> +=+ I suggest you have to go to Law 46B5.
>        Declarer has indicated a 'play'.
>        In what he said he did not indicate a rank or suit.
>        That seems to be what 46B5 says. The parenthesis
>        has no part in the substance of the law.
>                                                            ~ Grattan ~
> +=+

Wold you please expand on your last sentence?  Are you saying that
parenthetical expressions have no legal force and can just as well be
removed from the laws?

I thought the parenthetical in the first sentence of Law 46B was clear
and overriding.  What it says to me is if someone uses the wrong name,
such as "deuce of clubs" or "deuce of clovers" for example, it names
the card just as clearly as stating "two of clubs"---provided
declarer's meaning is incontrovertible.  Otherwise, Grattan, what law
makes "deuce of clubs" or "deuce of clovers" clear?

Also, Law 46B5 seems to have no bearing on this case.  Declarer did
not say "play anything" or words of like import.  The parenthetical
phrase at the beginning of Law 46B seems to me to override the need to
apply Law 46B5:  If his intention is indeed incontrovertible that the
suit he designated is diamonds even though he never said the word
diamonds, then Law 46B2 applies and the card he is deemed to have
played is the smallest diamond.

I had never before heard this notion that parenthetical phrases have
no part in the substance of the law.  Has this been written before?

-Jerry Fusselman