Rules

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. The Baseball Card Giveaway Sweepstakes ("Sweepstakes") starts at noon (ET) on March 25, 2013 and ends at 12 p.m. (ET) on April 8, 2013 ("Sweepstakes Period"). This Sweepstakes shall be subject to these Official Rules, and by entering, each entrant agrees to abide and be bound by these rules and the decisions of the judges and Sponsor. 1) Eligibility: This Sweepstakes is open to legal U.S. residents residing in Maryland, the District of Columbia, or York County, Pennsylvania who are 21 years and older as of the first day of the Sweepstakes Period.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. The Preakness Looks Contest ("Contest") starts at 7 a.m. (ET) on May 8, 2013 and ends at 11:59 p.m. (ET) on May 20, 2013 ("Contest Period"). This Contest shall be subject to these Official Rules, and by entering, each entrant agrees to abide and be bound by these rules and the decisions of the judges and and The Baltimore Sun Company ("Sponsor"). 1) Eligibility: This Contest is open to legal U.S. residents residing in Maryland, the District of Columbia, or York County, Pennsylvania who are 18 years and older as of the first day of the Contest Period.

Horse racing Rules on claiming horses toughened The Maryland Racing Commission toughened its rules on claiming horses at its monthly meeting Wednesday, addressing an issue that some believe might have contributed to an early-year spike in racetrack deaths at Laurel Park. The commission passed a new rule that will prevent a claimed horse from racing within 30 days unless the purse is at least 25 percent higher than in the thoroughbred's previous run. The new rule is designed to prevent owners from making a quick profit by claiming a horse and running him without proper rest against inferior competition in another claiming race.

A federal appeals court has upheld Maryland's handgun permitting law, reversing a lower court decision by concluding that the state can constitutionally require an applicant to show “good and substantial reason” that he or she needs a concealed-carry license. Fourth Circuit Judge Robert King, writing for the three-judge panel, said the state had shown that the requirement “is reasonably adapted” to its “significant interests in protecting public safety and preventing crime.” Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler cheered the ruling Thursday, saying the state is “a safer place today because of its handgun conceal-and-carry permit laws.” “The idea is to make sure guns are in the hands of responsible people, and not just anybody who wants to tote a gun in public,” Gansler said.

Maryland's second-highest court upheld the constitutionality of Baltimore's gun offender registry, a signature effort to curb gun violence that a city judge had called into question two years ago. The registry requires people convicted of gun crimes to provide addresses and other information to the city every six months for three years, and was modeled after a similar program in New York City. Circuit Judge Alfred Nance ruled in 2011 that the city's law was "unconstitutionally vague and awfully broad," among other concerns.

The estimable Jonathon Owen has published an article on towards  and toward  at Visual Thesaurus , presenting an interesting and plausible theory that the prevalence of the latter form in American published writing can be attributed to the efforts of copy editors. I commend it to you.  One thing that caught my eye was a comment appended to the article, from one Craig J. of Mundelein, Illinois: Pity the poor prescriptivists who suffer the slings and arrows of outraged descriptivists for holding the line against anarchy (the inevitable result of untempered democracy)

A federal judge ruled Monday that claims by two former Anne Arundel County employees, who allege they lost their jobs because of retaliation by the administration of former County Executive John R. Leopold, can advance to trial. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake threw out some parts of the lawsuits by Karla Hamner, a former spokeswoman for Leopold, and Joan Harris, who worked as a constituent services specialist during the executive's first term. But the judge "kept the crux of both of the cases" said John Singleton, an attorney representing both plaintiffs.

College lacrosse is beginning - albeit slowly - to regain its reputation as the fastest sport on two feet. New rules implemented in the offseason to accelerate the pace of play aren't showing up in the numbers. But anecdotally, what had devolved at times into a slow-plodding, low-scoring slog is turning into a fast-paced, action-packed thriller. "I think they're the best thing to ever happen to the game, to be honest with you," Denver coach Bill Tierney said. "The [NCAA] rules committee took charge of their charge, so to speak, and realized that the game was not getting any better.

Let me say more compactly what I tried to say earlier today . The presacriptivist/descriptivist debate is increasingly sterile. Hard-shell prescriptivists trumpet indefensible bogus rules, and hard-shell descriptivists, the ones who proclaim, "Prescriptivism must die," overlook the real need to prescribe reliable advice on writing. It comes down to this: Effective writing requires making sound choices about grammar, usage, syntax, and diction, considering subject, occasion, and audience.

Much as I am in sympathy with Lucy Ferriss's latest post at Lingua Franca , I fear that something she says may be subject to a dangerous misinterpretation: As I've said before, people want rules. Students, for instance, take notice when they start reading “to the Senator and I” in the newspaper, and when “with she and her brother” receives tacit approval from writing instructors. They may even notice that “I like he and she” has started sounding OK. A little time passes, and they begin to doubt whether me , him , us , and them ever were correct to say in a predicate construction or prepositional phrase.