As I’ve said in another context, taking the minutes is not some new slang for stealing a clock. Minutes are a record of what took place at a meeting. For reasons I won’t get into, I’m intimately aware of how to take minutes, or how to record what happens at a meeting. I’m talking about writing here.
The thing is, when you read minutes of a meeting, you very often get a choppy, flavourless account of discussion or commitments that everyone agreed upon. Minutes are really a CYA exercise, and as such, say very little. The general idea is to record what happened “without note or comment” meaning, without inflicting or perhaps, entertaining, the reader with the minute-taker’s analysis of what happened.
Unfortunately, this also means that you miss out of such gems of wisdom as can be bestowed with adjectives and adverbs. As if Mr. Smith merely "stood to address the U.S. Senate”. Isn’t it more useful to point out that “Mr. Smith held forth for his beliefs on the Senate floor, straining valiantly to continue in order to preserve his right and those of every citizen, to uphold the ideals of democracy”. True, filibusters aren’t usually Capra-esque, and, sorry to say, senators are not usually quite so endearing as Jimmy Stewart. I’d like to move a superlative motion to allow, nay, require the use of interesting and flowery descriptive language in minutes.
And….the motion fails to carry.
But it would be cool, wouldn’t it?
But you know what would be eerie? What if your whole life was like a meeting and you could steal into the secret back room of the library and read the minutes of the part that hasn’t happened yet. Sounds like something that came up in my first year philosophy class. Would the minutes show the part where you stood reading the minutes? And if they did, could you ever really skip ahead to what comes next? And if those minutes didn’t have adjectives and adverbs could anyone ever really understand what the future is meant to hold for them?
And would I be too scared to read it anyway?
The thing is, when you read minutes of a meeting, you very often get a choppy, flavourless account of discussion or commitments that everyone agreed upon. Minutes are really a CYA exercise, and as such, say very little. The general idea is to record what happened “without note or comment” meaning, without inflicting or perhaps, entertaining, the reader with the minute-taker’s analysis of what happened.
Unfortunately, this also means that you miss out of such gems of wisdom as can be bestowed with adjectives and adverbs. As if Mr. Smith merely "stood to address the U.S. Senate”. Isn’t it more useful to point out that “Mr. Smith held forth for his beliefs on the Senate floor, straining valiantly to continue in order to preserve his right and those of every citizen, to uphold the ideals of democracy”. True, filibusters aren’t usually Capra-esque, and, sorry to say, senators are not usually quite so endearing as Jimmy Stewart. I’d like to move a superlative motion to allow, nay, require the use of interesting and flowery descriptive language in minutes.
And….the motion fails to carry.
But it would be cool, wouldn’t it?
But you know what would be eerie? What if your whole life was like a meeting and you could steal into the secret back room of the library and read the minutes of the part that hasn’t happened yet. Sounds like something that came up in my first year philosophy class. Would the minutes show the part where you stood reading the minutes? And if they did, could you ever really skip ahead to what comes next? And if those minutes didn’t have adjectives and adverbs could anyone ever really understand what the future is meant to hold for them?
And would I be too scared to read it anyway?
I still think minutes could use a little colour commentary.
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