[Avodah] And so the game continued

[Joseph Kaplan]

"Why?  Why didn't the ba`al qri'ah just write in the vowels?  We are
obliged to read the book of Esther from a parchment (which is,
parenthetically, a better term than "qlaf"; books of the Bible aren't
supposed to be written on qlaf, although they can be, they're supposed
to be written on gvil) and yet we are allowed, lkhatxilla, to write in
the vowels if we need to.  A fortiori, we are not obliged to read,
e.g., the book of `Ovadya from a parchment, so if we do we should
certainly be permitted to write in the vowels.  Am I missing something?
I haven't studied these laws (just enough to make that pedantic
correction about "qlaf" and "gvil"), does it say anywhere that it's
forbidden?

By the way, as long as I am making pedantic corrections, because we
are Jews and we enjoy pedantic corrections, please don't call him the
"ba`al koreh".  Call him the "ba`al qri'ah" or the "qoreh", but a
"ba`al qoreh" is a to`evah, even though it is now legal in all 50
states.”

Answering the question and ignoring the admittedly pedantic “corrections,” I don’t know. I was just telling a story.
Joseph