During the health care debate in Congress, there was lots of talk about an “up-or-down vote.” A Montana listener finds this expression annoying. What’s wrong with plain old “vote”? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Up or Down Vote”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant.
Hi.
Hi, who’s this?
This is Don Jackson.
Don, where are you calling from?
I’m from Boatman, Montana, but I’m in the shadow of the Anaconda Smelter Smokestack right now.
The shadow of the Anaconda Smelter Smokestack. That sounds amazing. What are you looking at?
It sounds like a big shadow.
Oh, we’re setting up a…
Well, it used to be one of the biggest smokestacks in the world.
But we’re setting up some vegetation plots to see how some plants will grow in the heavy metals that are contaminating the area around the smelter.
That is hardcore work.
Wow.
So it’s more than just planting greenery.
It’s trying to recover the land, right?
It is.
It’s land rehabilitation, and we call it reclamation research.
Very interesting stuff.
So what’s your question today, Don?
Well, when I first heard that Justice Stevens was retiring, I thought, oh, no, here we go again.
The press and Congress is going to start using that ridiculous phrase that really bugs me.
Oh.
And what would that be?
An up or down vote.
I just think it’s totally ridiculous.
Votes are never up or down, unless maybe you’re mountain climbing or you’re on a ladder and you need to decide which way to go.
It seems like it’s a pretty recent phrase.
Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but I’ve been around for over five decades.
It seems like maybe just in the last seven or eight years we started hearing this term.
And I’m wondering where it came from and if there’s any chance of getting it out of the language.
Those are all reasonable questions, and I think you’ve got a pretty good shot at leaving this call happy.
I think that’s true.
I think that’s true.
So it really bugs you, this up and down vote business.
Yeah, it doesn’t really mean anything.
Are they saying, are we going to send this person up to heaven or down to hell?
Wow.
Well, you know, the funny thing…
I mean, I know the Supreme Court vote is to the higher court or the highest court in the land.
But they’re talking about other votes oftentimes, too.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, the thing about it is that a lot of times when a legislative body is voting on, say, a bill,
They’re not voting on the bill itself or the issue itself.
They’re voting on what to do about it, whether they should table the motion or send it back to committee or amend it or change the wording, something like that.
But an up or down vote is just a yay or nay vote, a yes or no vote on that very issue.
None of the procedural stuff to either side of it.
Up or down and up and down have been synonyms for direct and sort of unceremonious for at least a century.
Right.
So you stand up, cast your vote, and sit down.
Is that what it is?
Well, I don’t know that you necessarily – I’m picturing sort of like Congress looking like whack-a-mole, you know?
Stand up, sit down.
But this is jargon.
This is part of their business.
This is why they’ve got that term.
And then the journalists pick it up, and then it sounds freaky to us because we’re outsiders.
Right, right.
We think vote yes or no.
Right, right.
But you can vote yes or no on various aspects of an issue of a bill, about what to do about it or whether we should all break for lunch or something.
But the yes or no, the up or down is like a yes or no on the very bill itself or the very issue itself or the very person who’s been nominated.
Right, because their voting rules are so strange that they may have a vote on whether or not to vote on a vote.
Well, it depends on what the meaning of vote is.
Yeah, yeah.
Don, does that make sense?
That maybe it does have a more specific meaning inside their jargony world.
Yeah, I understand it’s usually a for or against vote.
But it just seems like a total misnomer to me.
Yeah, I know.
When they were talking about the health care bill,
They kept talking about an up or down vote on that, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Thank you for calling and sharing a little bit of your world with us.
Oh, you bet.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
Okay, bye-bye.
Thanks.
Bye-bye, Don.
Bye-bye.
Well, you know, we’re open to peeving.
If you’ve got something to peeve about, 1-877-929-9673.
Is language going to hell in a handbasket?
Oh, leave it to peever.
Let us know.
Email us, words@waywordradio.org.
