Power Pinochle Forums

I think I've mentioned this.  Verbs are a Very Big Deal in writing rules.  The laws of bridge actually include the following in the introduction to the 2008 revision:

Quote:Established usage has been retained in regard to “may” do (failure to do it is not wrong), “does” (establishes correct procedure without suggesting that the violation be penalized), “should” do (failure to do it is an infraction jeopardizing the infractor’s rights but not often penalized), “shall” do (a violation will incur a procedural penalty more often than not), “must” do (the strongest word, a serious matter indeed). Again “must not” is the strongest prohibition, “shall not” is strong but “may not” is stronger — just short of “must not.”

Since mick would like a coherent set of recommended rules, some form of consistent usage like this is most advisable. : When writing rules, creative expression is a VERY BAD thing, as is inconsistent usage.

BTW: "most advisable" equates out as a "shall." It's not absolutely required, but not doing it leads to bad rules.

I'd just like to mention that I quite like the frequency of "Offense" and "Defense" in the forum, despite these words not appearing much in rules documents that I have seen.

Using these nouns, sets up the document to easily transition between partnership and non-partnership variants.
There are obvious situations where a clause must specify Declarer versus the more general Offense.
Using Offense and Defense helps to maintain gender ambiguity when phasing calls for "he/she/his/her".

A well written set of rules should be easily transferred to other variants, with most clauses generally staying the same with very few and minor adjustments.