Weldon Merritt

That's exactly my point. By adopting the rules in RONR, the group has tacitly agreed that actions permitted by those rules, is not "rude" in the context of a meeting, whether or not the actions might be considered rude in another context. The group is always free to adopt its own Special Rules of Order disallowing something that otherwise would be allowed under RONR.

It is not. You may.

Discoverable by whom? If you mean are they discoverable in litigation (which I suspect is what you mean), that's a legal question that we can't answer on this forum.

In my view, no behavior is ipso facto rude. It is rude only if it is considered so within a specific culture or group. And sometimes the specific context also is important. There are countless examples of behavior that is considered rude in one culture or context, but not in another. Sometimes, omitting the behavior in the other culture may be considered rude. It seems to me that rather than railing against a rule that has long been an accepted part of parliamentary procedure, your efforts would be better spent in persuading your organization to adopt a Special Rule or Order banning the practice. I suspect if enough organizations did that, it might lead eventually to a change in the default rule.

I fail to see how using a tactic that is clearly allowed by the rules can be considered "rude." But it bears reminding readers that the rules in RONR are largely default rules. In most cases (including this specific example) an organization is free to adopt its own special rules of order to vary from the default.

I concur with Mr. Brown. The lesson: Pay attention! Or if you don't understand the motion, ask to have it repeated, or raise a Parliamentary Inquiry regarding the effect of the motion.

An interesting nuance that I suspect might frequently be overlooked.

I concur with Mr. Brown, with the caveat that if you are taking about a ballot for an election, it is not proper to even have "yes" and "no" choices. The only proper way to vote against a candidate in an election is to vote for another one.

As we often say here, it is up to each society to interpret its own bylaws, so my opinion is worth only as much weight as the society may wish to give it. But assuming there are no other provisions that could affect the quoted language, it certainly looks to me like you are correct.

Are you looking in the 12th edition? It became the current edition a couple of weeks ago. In case you don't yet have the 12th, the corresponding language in the 11th edition, at p. 408, ll. 9-13, is, "Interruptions during the taking of a vote are permitted only before any member has actually voted, unless, as sometimes occurs in ballot voting, other business is being transacted during voting or tabulating." Different wording, but essentially same meaning.

I concur with Mr. Brown.

RONR will give you no answer. So far as RONR is concerned, "the public" (i.e, anyone who is not a member of the school committee) has no rights at all in the meeting. Whatever rights you have are derived from the applicable open meetings law, and not RONR. So you will need to look at that law for the answer to your question.

Yes, that's correct, and I have now corrected the typo. So of course there is noting for Tomm to apologize for. If anything, I should apologize for the confusion caused by my "not" hole. I guess that was a prime example of what I meant when I said that "we all occasionally inadvertently use the wrong term."🙂

OK; we all occasionally inadvertently use the wrong term. But please note the second paragraph of Dr. Kapur's post: I, too, "think it's reasonable to move on," including with this conversation. It should be obvious to you by now that no one on this forum is likely to agree with you.

Since "dilatory, " by definition, means "tending to delay," it is hard to see how not conducting a counted vote could be more dilatory than conducting it. And if no one is willing to second a motion for a counted vote, then it would seem pretty apparent that no one other than the mover thinks the vote is "in question." If you think this really is a legitimate concern, you are free to move adoption of a Special Rule of Order requiring a counted vote on demand of a single member. I personally would not vote in favor of such a rule, if I were a member of your organization, but nothing is stopping you from proposing it.

I agree, And if the results aren't clear, even after a Division of the Assembly, the motion for a counted vote almost certainly will be seconded.

Yes, I suppose that would be a problem with the Kindle version. Personally, I almost never cite the tinted pages anyway. If I use them at all, it's just to quickly find what I am looking for, and then I find the appropriate section in the book and cite it.

Well, yes, there are no section and paragraph numbers in the tinted pages. But what's the problem? Just cite them the same way as you would have in the 11th edition.

And it appears that I also misread your post. But it seems that you are correct;; no motion was offered.

Yes, I somehow overlooked that part of the original post (as it appears that all of us except Mr. Mervosh did). So in that event, the motion simply needs to be made at the next meeting, under New Business, unless there is some other place it might come up (such as Committee Reports).

What happened with the motion to approve the budget? Why was it not adopted (or rejected) at the same meeting where it was moved? If the motion was postponed to the next meeting (either by adoption of a motion to Postpone or by operation of a rule of your organization) it is a General Order for that meeting, and should come up automatically under Unfinished Business and General Orders (not "Old Business"; there is no such animal in RONR-land). If the motion was pending when the meeting was adjourned, it should come up as the first item under Unfinished Business and General Orders. In either event, no one would need to move it again; it should come up automatically at the appropriate point in the meeting. The only reason it might need to be moved again is if it was defeated at the first meeting. Then it indeed would have to be made again (renewed) at the subsequent meeting.

I also have seen "s/he" used as a gender-neutral pronoun in writing, butI'm not sure how it should be pronounced in spoken English (maybe "sha-he"?). And I don't see that as any better than using "they." I suspect almost all of us, except perhaps the most pedantic, have used "they" as a singular pronoun more often than we admit in informal speech.

What do you find so abhorrent about it? Language is not static; it is in continual flux. As I have said before, I prefer to reword a sentence to avoid use on any pronoun, if it can be done without undue complexity. My second preference, if avoiding any pronoun would be too awkward, would be make the antecedent plural and then use the plural "they" later in the sentence. If that also seems too awkward, I personally use "he or she"; but I certainly don't get offended if someone else prefers to use "they."

Indeed I was. I don't know where I got the page 397 citation.

Au contraire. The wording in the 12th edition (43:25) is exactly the same as it was in the 11th (p. 393, ll. 19-26). As frequently is stated on this forum, he may ask, but the assembly is under no obligation to grant the request. Assemblies that dislike the rule are free to adopt a Special Rule of Order allowing the maker to speak against his own motion, either any time or after some specified condition. Otherwise, the rule remain what it was before.