Fun with footnotes

I'm not sure whether this brief post is more appropriate for Music Day (since it cites rap lyrics) or Reading Day (since it comes from Harper's Magazine's "readings" section, which compiles bits and pieces of odd things from other publications). So I figured I'd post it late in the day today, on the cusp of the two daily themes (the August Harper's is really good, by the way -- but more on that tomorrow).

The following is a footnote to a U.S. Appeals Court decision:

"The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a snitch bitch 'hoe.' A 'hoe,' of course, is a tool used for weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music, misunderstood Hayden's response. We have taken the liberty of changing 'hoe' to 'ho,' a staple of rap-music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris raps, 'You doin' ho activities with ho tendencies.'"