WASHINGTON INSIGHT

NEUTERED ENGLISH: Lawyers never have been tender with the English language. Yet even a few aging Supreme Court justices were surprised this week when a fellow jurist and famous Boston barrister tweaked an American phrase of long standing. The instigator was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a longtime champion of gender equality who refrains from using terms that refer to one sex. During arguments before the court, Harvard law professor Arthur R. Miller said Congress had decided in 1976 that new medical devices must meet exacting standards, while products already on the market were said to be “grandfathered in.” Ginsburg corrected the phrase to “grandparented in.” Yes, Miller agreed, these devices are “grandpersoned in.” The exchange drew grimaces from several older justices, whose own grandparents might have recognized that the ignoble origin of “grandfathered in” is one neither gender would want to claim. The phrase is rooted in efforts by Southern states after the Civil War to continue excluding blacks from voting.

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BOOST FOR GORE: In a choice that speaks loudly about Vice President Al Gore’s clout and his aspirations in the presidential campaign four years hence, President Clinton has settled on a former top aide to Gore to manage the Clinton-Gore reelection campaign. The selection of Peter S. Knight indicates that Gore will have a strong voice in the 1996 campaign, as he did four years ago, and apparently signals an intention to use a second term to give the veep a running start for the presidential race of 2000. Knight, a major Democratic party fund-raiser, was Gore’s administrative assistant in the Senate and led his campaign in 1992. Clinton-Gore aides hope the long-awaited selection of a manager also will reduce the tension between two chief Clinton aides--Harold M. Ickes, deputy White House chief of staff, and Clinton political strategist Dick Morris--whose rivalry has been a tasty, semipublic drama at the White House since the campaign began shaping up last year.

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FREE FOR ALL: The Public Broadcasting Service is taking the concept of presidential debates to a new level. PBS is announcing this week that on Sept. 29, a date between the first presidential debate and the scheduled face-to-face between vice presidential candidates, the network will conduct a free one-hour “national congressional debate” featuring congressional leaders of both parties. Plans are for local PBS stations to follow that program with an hour of debate involving local congressional candidates.

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SHARING WEALTH: If you give money to your parents as well as to your adult children, you are a member of a segment of Americans dubbed the “sandwich generation.” A new federal survey shows that more than 37% of all married couples in their 50s give $500 or more annually to their adult children and more than 14% give that much to their parents. The study of the “sandwich generation” found that the median gift to children was $3,300 and the median gift to parents was $1,200. The National Institute on Aging study was the first formal government study to demonstrate the wide extent of aid among the generations.

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STILL BORK: Former federal appeals court Judge Robert H. Bork hasn’t lost his touch for self-directed barbs, even after his searing and failed experience as a Supreme Court nominee nine years ago. At the unveiling of his portrait at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here, Bork responded to the praise heaped on him by fellow jurists, ex-law clerks and the like. It amounted to “exaggerations and outright lies,” he said, and noted that he preferred the lies. Furthermore, he added, “a eulogy is not an affidavit.”