Hypergrammatical myth mars history

In wry NYT op-ed called "Oaf of Office," psychologist Steve Pinker identifies and chides Chief Justice Roberts' fussy split-verb copy editing of the U.S. Constitution.

In his legal opinions, Chief Justice Roberts has altered quotations to conform to his notions of grammaticality, as when he excised the “ain’t” from Bob Dylan’s line “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” On Tuesday his inner copy editor overrode any instincts toward strict constructionism and unilaterally amended the Constitution by moving the adverb “faithfully” away from the verb.