[Adam]

Originally Posted by RandyBrown

Personally, I don’t glean the clear, sweeping mandate that you do from Article 3. The primary definition of incidental contact, preceding any Articles, requires two things: 1) that the contact is permitted, AND 2) that it not be a foul. I think we both agree that the “permitted” part is what the subsequent Articles are trying to delineate, in addition to outlying passages such as 4-19-1’s subnote. I think Article 1 can be summarized as describing contact that is essentially unavoidable under the circumstances of competitive play. If we drop the clause set out by commas in Article 2, we are left with, “Contact should not be considered illegal, even though the contact may be severe.” If we do a little parsing, the drafters’ use of grammar indicates that they are, again, referring to the type of contact previously mentioned--what I summarize as essentially unavoidable contact under the circumstances of competitive play. Then, Article 3 begins with “Similarly,” indicating the same thing, a reference to the type of contact previously mentioned. So, contextually, Articles 2 and 3 are referring to contact that is BOTH essentially unavoidable under the circumstances of competitive play (the “permitted” part of the primary definition of IC), AND also not a foul. They use the word "and" to combine those two.

As I have no intention of engaging in rule-book hermeneutics, I'm going to let you have the last word on this. You've demonstrated that you're not willing to learn, and for an 18 month official, that's not a good thing. I'm going to wash my hands of this, double the size of my ignore list, and drop it. I've simply put too much time into trying to help someone who doesn't want help.



Maybe you can find the original Greek manuscript and go from there.