[blml] 'normal'

[Grattan Endicott]

Grattan Endicott
gesta at tiscali.co.uk
[also geggeg at tiscali.co.uk]
*************************
"The multitude of the sick shall
not make us deny the existence
of health."       [Emerson]
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric Landau" <ehaa at starpower.net>
To: "Bridge Laws Mailing List" <blml at amsterdamned.org>
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 3:20 PM
Subject: Re: [blml] 'normal'


> On Nov 4, 2007, at 7:26 AM, Grattan Endicott wrote:
>
(Eric):
>>> But it no longer appears in the footnote.  That
>>> raises a new concern:  not whether a player's
>>> ability is relevant to "irrational", but whether
>>> "irrational" is relevant to L70D and L71, from
>>> which the refererence to it has been expunged.
>>> Tim's point, as I understand  it, is that while it
>>> may be true that it is no longer relevant to the
>>> consideration of plays that are careless or
>>> inferior, it may remain relevant to consideration
>>> of plays which are neither (like trump squeezes
>>> when Mrs. Guggenheim declares).
>> ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
>> (Grattan)
>> +=+ I wonder whether what is not being absorbed
>> here is the requirement in the substantive law that
>> the Director shall only postulate plays that are, in
>> bridge terms without reference to the class of player,
>> normal. If a play would be abnormal whoever might
>> make it then the Director is not entitled to consider it.
>> To that extent irrational plays would be excluded
>> from the Director's mind.
>
(Eric):
> That is not being absorbed because that is not what it says.  What it
> says is that "'normal' includes play that would be careless or
> inferior".  Which means that "normal" includes play that is any of
> (a) "dictionary" normal, i.e. plays that would be considered normal
> were there no footnote, (b) careless, or (c) inferior.  Which means
> that it excludes only play that is none of (a), (b) or (c).  Very few
> "irrational" plays, however defined, would qualify as none of (a),
> (b) or (c).
>
> Grattan's suggested criterion is precisely what the 1997 laws, as
> written, called for.  If that was the WBFLC's intent, there was no
> need to change the footnote; all it needed was to be "un-
> reinterpreted".  If it was felt that clarification was needed, they
> could have used Grattan's words above, leaving the existing words
> unchanged but (redundantly) appending "without reference to the class
> of player".  Or simply deleted "for the class of player involved".
>
> Moreover, if such an exception were implicit in the new footnote, as
> Grattan suggests, it would surely not appear explicitly in L70E.  The
> author(s) of L70E must have meant *something* by putting it there,
> and it must be something that they didn't intend should apply to L70D
> or L71.
>
> I don't understand how TDs are supposed to "absorb" this implicit
> exception for irrational plays in contexts in which neither of the
> words "rational" nor "irrational" appears in the relevant law.
>
+=+ Not quite what I said. My view is that the word 'normal' excludes
the abnormal, and that anything irrational is abnormal. However, if a
correspondent as rational as Eric thinks this is unclrear then I do have
an anxiety. I know that in removing 'irrational' from the footnote and
relying upon the meaning of 'normal' (in the Law itself) the intention
was to exclude consideration of any play that, for any and every player,
is irrational. Whether this needs be further clarified is not something that
one of us alone can decide, but my inclination is to wish that there may
be no doubt of it.
                                ~ Grattan ~   +=+