This past month Rep. David Lewis abruptly resigned from his office after pleading guilty to federal charges of siphoning money from political funds to personal funds.

In the actual documentation concerning the charges, what Lewis did was simply change a little in the nomenclature of a name so that it appeared he was making legit transactions.

He took money that was paid to “NCGOP” and deposited it successfully into a personal account called NC GOP, Inc.

He literally added a <space> and a comma. And for a while it worked, but not for too long. Maybe Lewis needed to do a better job of covering that up.

He needed to proofread and edit more.

It’s almost funny that he was able to get away with it for a bit becasue nobody picked up on the simple “respelling” of NCGOP.

What a lesson for reading comprehension that this episode is. And a lesson for civics as well. And math.

It isn’t that former Rep. Lewis does not know the importance of precise “markings.” Lewis is pretty good at drawing lines and using “legislative editing” skills. From The Intercept from last October 30th:

Yep. Lewis was the chief legislative architect of the racially gerrymandered district lines that were declared unconstitutional by the higher courts.

Lewis’s grammatical and usage adventures are not just limited to him. It’s been happening on a national scale.

Here’s a tweet from last night sent out by the president.

Now everybody makes mistakes grammatically – even English teachers. This blog certainly has had its share. Hopefully, that is more the exception than the rule.

But that tweet is more than a <space> and a comma.

Actually, it’s about multiple commas, an apostrophe, and some fuzzy word choice.

Ironically he is talking about his son’s new book and made a reference to DJT, Jr.’s previous book that was self-published. Here is the cover of that previous book when it was first being marketed.

That apostrophe thing must be hereditary.

Trump, Trump, Jr., and David Lewis are making strong cases for the need to proofread and edit.