Here's a fine philosophical point for all the wordsmiths out there.
How far, if at all, do the RRS constrain our choice of words?
A National Judge who I have worked with insisted that we never say "Amendment" to the NOR or SI, but only "Change", since that was the wording of the RRS.
Another person suggested that I could not say, in our NOR, that there would be "up to" three races per day, again constrained by the RRS.
My position is that, if the meaning is clear, we are free to use the words of our choice.
But what do you think? Are we required to only reflect words that appear in the RRS?
The NoR/SI should, when possible, use words or phrases from the racing rules.
We often say that using the language of the RRS helps rules discussions.
So yes, it's a good idea.
I wouldn't obsess about it.
I use 'changes' for the magic words 'This changes RRS xx'.
I use Amendment and Amend for changes to the NOR/SI but I wouldn't argue if someone preferred to say 'changes'.
I have no problem with 'up to' and often use it: If we're talking about the number of races per day or session it may clearly say what I want to say.
If we're talking about Scoring RRS J1.3(5), I'm aware of some classes that like to maximise the number of rapid fire races in a regatta: they could use this, but I prefer to set a hard number of races to score a series.
Could you take a 10 year old and say "I am amending Rule 31 so that if you touch a mark you don't need to do a 360 degree penalty" and they would definitely know what amending means?
If you said changing could you?
And what if English is not their first language?
According to the (Google) dictionary...
Not all dictionaries agree about the change being minor or to be fairer. But a change to the RRS in a SI or NoR does not have to be minor or fit that matter fairer. The words "this amends" and "this changes" while mostly seen as synonymous might actually be different...?
Similarly "up to" can be ambiguous. Is it up to and including? If the suggested alternative were "no more than" is any ambiguity removed. Again, imagine that the NoR was in French or German. While you might think you could translate, would you be sure if it was up to and including or not?
It is sometimes worth putting a phrase through a reading age tool. The younger the age, the more inclusive the text.
A common SI phrase might be:
"Personal floatation devices must be worn at all times while afloat. This changes rule 40."
(The firstword.co.uk/readabilitytest: 66 with changes, 60 with amends). 100 is most readable.
If we do the same with up to:
"There will be up to 7 races, with up to 4 races per day" then both score 100!
“Could you take a 10 year old and say "I am amending Rule 31 so that if you touch a mark you don't need to do a 360 degree penalty" and they would definitely know what amending means?”
Whether or not 10 year olds would understand “amending”, they might well not understand a “360 degree penalty”, since it disappeared from the RRS 10 years before they were born! (end of December 2004).