Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:53:37 EDT
Consider This Sentence
The following sentence occurs in REUTERS on Apple News. “Handing President Donald Trump a stinging defeat, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected his audacious attempt to restrict birthright citizenship in the United States—a right long woven into the fabric of American society—scuttling one of his top priorities in his crackdown on immigration.”
The sentence is too long and inappropriately editorial: stinging defeat, audacious attempt.
Woven into the fabric of American society is a relatively meaningless metaphor. What is the fabric of society? How is birthright citizenship woven into that fabric? It’s more useful to say that birthright citizenship became law in 1868 when the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution was ratified.
My rewrite: “On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s 2025 executive order that ended birthright citizenship. Citizenship has been granted automatically to those born in the U.S. since 1868 when the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution was ratified.”