I'm more parsing the English than anything. I understand the concepts, but just wondering why the English is so bad in the rule book when they go after us on the test for the same English.
Now that you've discovered that the NFHS Rules Code is sometimes, just a tad short, of being exactly clear and concise, you might consider that, essentially, the entire NFHS Case Book is an effort to further explain, what might be hard to clearly understand in the Rules presentation. As the Case Book carries the same explanatory weight as the Rule Book,it often can be extremely helpful in understanding the intended application of each NFHS Rule.
Your personal choice is limited to (a) driving yourself insane trying to understand each and every Rule entry, from a grammatical perspective, (b) focus on the conceptual intent of each Rule, and/or (c) make appropriate suggestions for revising the language through the appropriate channels.
There is a (d) option, I hesitate to even mention, which would be to insist on trying to force square pegs into round holes, allowing your consideration of linguistic mistakes to guide your actual rule conclusions away from their intended purpose.
