the.com/amendment
A nation's edit button, wielded by people too dead to take it back.
means A formal change or addition made to a legal document, law, or constitution to correct, improve, or update it.
from From the Latin emendare, 'to free from fault,' built from e- ('out of') and menda ('a fault, blemish'). It traveled through Old French amender before settling into English, where 'mend' (as in mending a torn sock) is its humbler, closely related cousin — both are in the business of fixing what's flawed.
- Rare event
- Only 27 ratified from over 11,000 proposed
- Ghost amendment
- One waited 202 years before ratification in 1992
- Self-correction
- The 21st repealed the 18th's alcohol ban
- High bar
- Needs three-quarters of states to agree
- Pending forever
- Some proposed amendments still technically await ratification