Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Faggarty, and today we're going to talk about words related to meetings. And I'm here with Jim Slaughter, who is the president of law firm Carolinas, and a big deal, Parliamentarian. He is a professional registered Parliamentarian, past president of the American College of Parliamentary Lawyers, and a Parliamentarian to many of
the largest trade and professional associations in the country. He's written four books on Robert's Rules of Order and Running Proper Meetings, including two recent books updated for the latest Roberts. Roberts Rules of Order Fast Track and Notes and Comments on Robert's Rules Fifth Edition. Jim Slaughter, welcome to the Grammar Girl podcast. Thank you, Mignon. Yeah, so you are really into meetings, and we're going to talk about the words related to meetings, but why is this also important?
When you think about all the meetings in the United States, you've got unions, you've got religious institutions, you have nonprofits, you have charities, homeowner associations,
there really are millions of meetings in the United States every year. And by knowing the words that get used in those meetings, because it's almost like a trade language, by knowing the right words in those meetings, people that go to the meetings can look like they know what they are doing, and they're more likely to get done what they want to accomplish at the meeting.
Right, so I feel like the last time I thought about parliamentary procedure was probably in high school, and maybe some group I was in, where does this get used in the adult world today? Lots of people are introduced to in high school, but think of all the places where businesses
or associations meet to transact business. Again, it would include religious institutions and church meetings, it would include unions, trade associations, almost all of the nonprofits and charities in the United States have boards of director meetings, many of them have membership
meetings. So there are many places in life ranging from the PTA to a homeowner's association where you might show up and suddenly realize, oh, that's that parliamentary procedure thing that I was introduced into a little bit when I was in high school. Yeah, tell me how you help organizations like do this better? Well, as a parliamentarian, which again is one of those words, since you love words, many parts of the world of parliamentarian is someone who is an elected official and serves
in a parliament. You'll see that in lots of countries in the United States, a parliamentarian is someone who helps with meeting procedure. They advise the presiding officer and how to run a good meeting because they're legal aspects to running an effective meeting where
you might think you did something and you did not. But for today's purposes, let's just say proper words and procedure can make meeting shorter and again, it can make you look like you know what you are doing at a meeting, which is important to. If you run a meeting improperly according to parliamentary procedure, can that cause a legal problem? It can. It depends on the specific issue, like anything else, you know,
there are little errors, there are big errors. But if you do something like if you don't call a meeting properly, if you don't wait until there are enough people at the meeting for it to be able to make decisions, if you take the wrong vote, as you can imagine, those can lead to legal issues, but let's not focus on the legal issues. Let's just say that good procedure will make meeting shorter and it will make them fair.
Fair, that's always good. And what are Robert's rules of order? Like I've definitely heard of that, but how does it relate to parliamentary procedure? Well, most people think Robert's rules of order in parliamentary procedure are synonymous, they are not. Parliamentary procedures, everything that goes into running a legal and an effective
meeting. Robert's rules of order is a book on parliamentary procedure. It was first written by an Army Corps of Engineer, ended up being a Brigadier General in the Union Army in 1876 named Henry Martin Robert. He wrote his first book. It was about 176 pages and it was about this small. Oh, he's holding up a book. It's very sad. Holding up a book, I'm sorry, that's right. For those on the podcast, it's 176 pages
because he wanted something that would go into your pocket. What a lot of people don't realize. They think this is some old book. It's actually updated about every 10 years. So the current Robert's rules of order is the 12th edition and it's 714 pages. Oh, that's a door stopper. It looks more like the Chicago manual is style. Not quite as thin, but most people don't need to know everything in this book. They just
need no enough to run a meeting. This is like an encyclopedia of meetings. So there's something in here about everything, but you don't have to use everything in this book to run a good meeting. Wow. I can see why you would need to be certified, though. I'm knowing all that. It's a lot to know. Well, and Roberts is the 800 pound gorilla of the parliamentary world used by most organizations, but different groups use different books. Lots of legislatures use a book called Demeter's,
lots of physicians and medical groups. Dental groups use a book called the Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure. So Roberts is not the only game in town. It's just the best numb. Is that like the difference between the Chicago manual of style and MLA and the AP style book? Do people have sort of their allegiances or are different books like, you know, formatted specifically for different industries? That's correct. For the groups that use those different books, it tends to be there's
something about the process and those books they like more. But again, without question, Roberts is by far the most common and most used parliamentary authority in the United States. Fascinating. Yeah. Well, I'm getting a side chat, but this is also interesting. But we are here to talk about the words. The words that there's so many interesting words that fall under parliamentary procedure. Why don't we start with bylaws?
When bylaws is good when to start with, because the bylaws for an organization are the documents that govern it. It used to be called the Constitution or the Constitution bylaws. Bylaws used to have a hyphen in it, BY hyphen laws. But the history on it's kind of interesting. I know you did a podcast once on Old English and Middle English. It's actually a Norse word. BY appears in some English cities like Whitby and Derby. And I'm told that means
that it was settled by Vikings. The word by means village or town. And so if you break it down bylaws, just really mean the town laws. And nowadays, that's what associations and other bodies have. It's their governing documents. Isn't that great? I would have thought for sure that by law would have been by the preposition by the law, but it actually means the town law. That's so great. What are some of the other words that are interesting words that are commonly used in the meetings?
And you asked me to pull a couple of words that you don't have to know these words to go to a meeting. But it adds some flavor to the meeting. And again, a lot of people walk into meetings and they'll hear bylaws or they'll hear whorem or they'll hear majority. And if it's not a word you're familiar with, it can be a very foreign experience. And so by knowing some of the words, it makes it a better meeting and you'll have a better
feeling for what's going on. Chorum is another word that comes up and and chorum is a Latin word. For meetings, it means how many people have to be there for it to be a legal meeting. How many people need to show up before you start voting on things because you don't want to be voting on things without enough people there for it to be representative for the
group? Chorum just means of whom and basically in England and old times when they would appoint justices of the peace, the commission appointing them would say that either one of them or some of them had to be present before they could transact any business. And that's pretty much what it means for meetings, which is we want enough people here so that it's not some small group making a decision on behalf of the big group that is unrepresentative.
You always want to quorum before you start voting on things at a meeting. Right. And then you talked about majority, like if you want a majority of that quorum, it doesn't mean what everyone, a lot of people think it means, right? And the history is not as exciting. It comes from majority, but it's used wrong so often. I'm happy you raised it. And by that, I mean, I hear on excellent news stations or reporting on Congress or governmental meetings
that usually majority will be said to mean 51%. It does not mean that. Or I will hear that it means half plus one. It also doesn't mean that majority just means more than half. So depending on the size of your group or depending on whether you have fractional interests, majority might just be 50.001%. And if you use one of those other numbers, I just threw out, you're very likely going to end up with a wrong number. So majority just means
more than half. However small that might be. Right. So if you have 100% than 51% is more than half. But if you have 1000 people, it might be 50.05%. I don't know. Can't regret. Girl, those math. Don't trust my math. You're better than mine. But yes, if it's 1000 people, a majority will have 500 would probably be 501 unless you're voting fractionally. But let's say there are 1000 and one people. Well, half is 500 and a half. Well, if you
said majority is 51%, you're going to get a wrong number. If you say it's half plus add a whole another one, that's wrong too. Again, a majority just means more than half. However small that might be. Yeah. And since we're on math terms, you mentioned division. That sounded like another interesting word. It is mainly because it's so visual in a meeting frequently votes are taken by the chair asking, would all those in favor say, I
I would all those opposed say no, no. And it's often very clear. But if it's not clear, anybody can under Roberts can ask for a division. A division just means I just want to see the vote. I'd like to divide the room. I'd like to everybody who's in favor to stand. I'd like everybody who's opposed to stand. We're not going to count. We're just going
to eyeball it. But the word division comes from Parliament where there are actually two separate doors in the back of the room where when they do a division or divide the house, different members go to a different door and walk in through separate instances in the room and get counted somewhat like maybe cattle. So I've never been in a meeting like this. So people are physically getting up and moving around. Well, again, that's that's
Parliament dividing by doors. But in the United States and in typical parliamentary procedure these days you're in Roberts all a division. These days means is, hey, now that we did a voice vote, it wasn't clear enough. Let's just have everybody stand up who's in favor and sit down. Everybody who's opposed stand up and sit down and we'll do a quick eyeball. But the the history of the word division because you might wonder, why is this called a division?
Is it actually comes from a time when the yeses and the nose were actually divided in the room? Hmm. And in what in Zoom meetings, do they have people like digitally raise their hands or something like that? If you're in a virtual meeting, you're exactly right because you've been on lots of meetings virtually as everybody else has these days, there is a device within the Zoom meeting where you can raise hands and sometimes in virtual meetings, people will send in their vote as
a text message so that you have a recording of it permanently. The main issue with virtual meetings, which we may talk about in a bit is there needs to be some basis for doing a virtual meeting. There either needs to be a statute that allows you to do it or there needs to be something in the bylaws because a virtual meeting is not automatically the same as an in-person meeting. Something in those bylaws in the town law. So is it true that there is no next order of business?
Well, I know you and I jatted just briefly about that one. You were regularly, regularly and almost any meeting you go to, and it's almost something that's used outside of meetings now where someone will make reference to the next order of business. Without getting too complicated here, there is one order of business for a meeting.
The order of business is a type of an agenda, but it's everything that's going to happen in that meeting generally from the beginning when the meeting is called to order all the way to the adjournment. There's one order of business. So to say the next order of business is sort of like saying the next week of the day. It's backwards. The proper phrase in Roberts and you will not find the phrase next order of business in Roberts.
A better phrase would be something like the next item of business because there's just one order of business. Again, the parliamentary police are not going to show up at your meeting and do something if you use the wrong term on these. But if you're running a meeting, you may want to use the right phrases so that people understand that you know something about running a meeting. I'm imagining the parliamentary police. You don't have to. Don't imagine that. Taurifying. Taurifying.
Do they have gavils on their bell? Try corner hats. So you mentioned adjournment. You told me that was an interesting word too. Well, only in that again, it's a word that's thrown around a lot inside and outside of meetings. We're going to adjourn. There's an adjournment for a meeting. All an adjournment means or to adjourn just means at the end of the meeting. That's how you bring it to an end.
But my understanding is that it's a, it's a, it's a, originally a Latin, but it's a French phrase as well. And it's, and I'm horrible at French, but it's basically a juror meant, on juror, good day. The juror part is the day. It's to a day to, to reconvene the meeting. So put all together again, the phrase basically instead of ending a meeting, it was sort of announcing we're finishing this one up and then we will be getting it together at a later date. Yeah, it comes from the word day.
Yeah. So it's like, and day, daybreak or dawn is the same route. The, the route means daybreak or dawn or day and it was about like having the continuing the meeting the next day, which I thought was, was interesting and lovely. And this is your world, but my understanding is the D got added basically accident. Eventually or by mistake, there doesn't really need to be a day in the word, or D in the word, but that's the way it is. Oh, that happens. I love those stories.
Yeah. And so we, we just, we have, we missed talk like a pirate day, but filibuster is just, we have to talk about it because it's this wonderful world that, word that relates to meetings or at least government and it has ties to pirates. It does indeed. And, and again, it's not really a Roberts word. It's not in these parliamentary books. And that's because Roberts, for instance, doesn't let anybody talk for more than 10 minutes. And frequently the rules of a meeting are shorter than that.
What a filibuster is for those who haven't experienced it is in the US Senate. A filibuster is where you talk something to death. And that's because they don't have time limits. And so you can keep talking. And in fact, there's a famous movie that's quite old at this point called Mr. Smith goes to Washington with Jimmy Stewart in it. And one of the plot lines is that to try and stop something, he starts speaking in the US Senate and he will not stop.
And he talks for days and it shuts everything down. And the word filibuster, although it's not a Roberts word, it is an interesting word. And, and the point you were making about pirates is apparently the word filibuster comes from filibuster. It's a West Indian term for a small type of a boat, which I believe is a filibote. And, and the idea was these little boats could harass. They could annoy. They could go around bigger ships.
And basically they could just cause all sorts of trouble, which is kind of a vivid image of what a filibuster in the United States Senate would be. It's someone in the minority who gets the floor and won't give it up. And they're using pirate like or disorderly or lawless tactics to try to get their way. So it's a very visual word when you think of it as paratical. Right. Yeah. And then that the word about the boat, it goes back ultimately to the Dutch to free booter.
I don't know how to say it in the Dutch, but it's what pirates were called. And it literally means free booty like free plunder. And boot is really an interesting word because there are three different kinds of boots. So there's the boot at least probably more. There's the boot you wear in your foot. And that comes from one origin. And then there's a type of boot that I thought might be the origin of booty, which is, it means extra.
So like if you say, oh, we're having ice cream, but then we're getting sprinkles to boot. That meaning of boot comes from, I think, an old, old English word. That means to make something better. And in business deals, you can also have the boot, which is extra money that you consider, you know, money or stuff that you give to sort of sweeten the deal. But then booty, which is what pirates get actually comes from a third origin. So that meant, oh, I have to look at it.
It meant it's just completely different. But to filibuster also goes back to pirates and they're free booty. So which again, the worst thrown around a lot without knowing the history, you know, you don't have to know it to know what the word means. But it sort of adds color to it.
Once you get all this history, I'll even mention that the US Congress, as I understand it, also used to allow people to talk indefinitely until a particular congressman in the early 1800s apparently took them up on that and Congress passed a rule that limited debate to one hour.
And I always thought it would be interesting to be the person who gets asked, you know, what was your contribution in Congress and the answer is, well, I talked so much that they adopted a rule that wouldn't allow people to talk forever anymore. Today, he would have been a podcaster. So how about one of the words on your list was X of Fischio. And I don't think I know how to use that word.
Well, and that's a Latin word only seen sometimes not really in meetings, but it has to do with organizations and X of Fischio member is someone who has not been elected to a position, but they're in a position because of some other office they hold, like the governor might be an X of Fischio member of a school board of trustees or a treasure might be an X of Fischio member of the finance committee. And X of Fischio just means out of or from a Fischio office.
So it's Latin and it basically means I'm serving out of this office that I serve, meaning I'm on the committee because I'm treasure and if I resign as treasure and someone else comes in as treasure, they're now going to serve in this position instead of me because you're serving on it because of some other office that you hold. Yeah. So it's essentially the office that serves instead of the person and they were not elected, they're serving bookhauls of this other office. So yes, that's correct.
And what about abstain? Abstain is to not vote. In parliamentary procedure, you don't have to vote. You could vote in favor of something. You could vote against something, but you also have the option of not voting. If it's a voice vote, you just stay quiet. And it's middle English as I understand it from Old French, abstinere, which basically is the same background as abstinence. And the parliamentary world to abstain means I choose not to vote.
Some chairs will actually call on those who wish to abstain, but the parliamentary books say don't do that because these people don't wish to have attention drawn to themselves and don't wish to vote. So don't make it part of the vote. I thought it was interesting that it was first used in the not drinking alcohol sense. So the original meaning was to not drink alcohol and then it was in 1796 that it was first used to talk about not voting.
So the alcohol connection was around far longer than the meeting connection it sounds like. Right. Interesting. Yeah. Now, what is proxy and abbreviation? It is. And it's a good one. Probably proxy is also a Latin word in countries as I understand it. The follow Roman law or again in Rome. It's an agent who represents other people in court. And the long word or the official word is I understand it is procurator, which I'm going to say very slowly because I can mess that up.
And a procurator is someone who is practicing procuracy and a proxy is a much better and easier way to say either of those two long words, I'm not going to try again. A proxy is someone you send to do something on your behalf. At a meeting. So much like I said, as someone who represents someone else in court, I could send Minyeon as my proxy if it's allowed by statute. I could send Minyeon as a proxy to a meeting to speak on my behalf or maybe I will just give her authority to vote on my behalf.
But if she goes to the meeting, it counts as though I'm at the meeting and she is there on my behalf as proxy. Yeah. And the origin of that one is interesting too. It comes from a word that means to manage. And so proxy is also related to procure. So if you procure something, you're sort of man. It goes back to the idea of managing that process or getting what you need.
And it makes sense to me and I like the abbreviation, but I have pondered that I've never in my life ever encountered the word procurator or procuracy used in normal English. Right. Now when we have to talk about that is really interesting because a lot of people get confused about it is to table something. I have been in meetings where people talk about tabling things, just regular business meetings. But not everyone is sure what it means.
Well, and that's one of those words that I was mentioning a bit ago. It's sort of like calling the previous question or to move the previous question, which is a way you close debate. Table is another one of those words that if you don't have the secret handshake, you may wonder what are they talking about?
And in America, to table a motion, and it's a very visual motion, to table means to basically put something on a table that you're going to come back to later, meaning it is a motion to temporarily delay something while you're handling something of a more importance. But when you mentioned it's got some interestingness to it.
In different parts of the world, it means completely different things in England and in Parliament to table something means to put it on the table so that we will now begin consideration of it. And the exact opposite is true in Robert Schruel's order in the United States for normally table means to delay or to get rid of something. So it's the reverse of the same word.
Yeah, no, I've seen British people and American people who said I always thought this meant the opposite because they mean the opposite in British English and American English. You can think about, you know, in British English, it's as if the table is in front of you or in the middle of the circle of where everyone's meeting. So you're putting it on the table to bring it forward. In American English, it's more like the table is off to the side way in the back.
And we're just going to put it on the table and maybe forget about it. And so if you visit Parliament as an American or if you're watching CISBAN in Europe, you might wonder why is this the complete reverse of what I think it is. But I think it was George Bernard Schruel who said that we were two countries divided by a common language. In fact, you asked about parliamentarians earlier. I'll mention that in the United States, a parliamentarian is someone who advises on parliament to procedure.
But in many parts of the world, if you show up and say, I'm a parliamentarian, they would assume that means you're an elected official because you were a member of that government's parliament. And so yet again, a word that means very different things depending on where you are. Interesting. You have to be careful how you introduce yourself to people in other countries, Jim. Let's finish up this main section talking about the word minutes because the minutes of a meeting were interesting too.
And minutes sounds to me, some of those you said earlier, if you had to figure it out, if I had to figure it out on my own, I think, oh minutes, of course, minutes are a record of what was done at the meeting. It's sort of a shorthand version of everything that happened in the meeting. It is not a record of what was said. It is a record of what was done. But of course, minutes, oh, we're keeping minutes because that's, that means the time. Now we're writing down what we did with our time.
But that's not really what it comes from at all. It's a Latin term that means the new to scriptura. And that just means small notes, which is a pretty good description of what it is. It's just small notes about what happened at the meeting, but it's not based on time or have anything to do with time. Yeah, I would have guessed it was. That's great. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Our grammar poliza subscribers, our premium subscribers are going to get an additional segment at the end.
We're going to talk about synchronous versus asynchronous meetings. And who was this Robert's Guide, Robert's Rules of Order, and some of Jim's book recommendations. But for the rest of you, thanks for joining us. And Jim, where can people find you? For Parliament to Procedure, our firm's website is at www.JimSlauter.com. There's lots of free resources there, charts, articles, and information on the parliamentary organizations in the country. Thank you so much.