Grammar lessons from the Constitution

The simple phrase 'as soon as', which your middle-school English teacher told you is a subordinating conjunction and you are still figuring out who was subordinate to who, appears 28 times in our Constitution—eight times followed by 'possible' and 20 times by 'may be'.

- R. PRASANNAN

Forget your English teacher and her Wren & Martin; let's get constitutional. There are times when the Constitution is simpler to explain than is English grammar. What I meant was: the phrase 'as soon as possible' appears eight times in the Constitution; 'as soon as may be' appears 20 times. Examples? Here they go.

Article 68(2) says, “An election to fill a vacancy in the office of vice president occurring by reason of his death, resignation or removal, or otherwise shall be held as soon as possible after the occurrence of the vacancy….”

Article 93 says, “The House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the house to be respectively speaker and deputy speaker thereof…”