diff --git a/PENDING.md b/PENDING.md
index b3cc0c7..90b7c92 100644
--- a/PENDING.md
+++ b/PENDING.md
@@ -1345,6 +1345,26 @@ Method: every `*JURIST-PACKAGE*.md` / `*FOR-JURIST*.md` under `~/dotfiles/claude
 
 **Falsifier / check.** Whatever is ruled, the fix ships with a test asserting `COMPOST\*` ≢ `COMPOST\*\*` under the governing relation, and that all three arity classes (0/1/2) remain distinguishable. If that test cannot be written, the remedy did not work.
 
+### Grounding — Alexander's own words, quoted verbatim
+
+Source: `chamber-library/canonical_texts/traditions/contemporary_voices/environmental/a-pattern-language-christopher-alexander.md`, **lines 139–147** ("Using this book", pp. 14–15). This region is **withheld paratext** — the served body begins at L859 — so the engine cannot reach the passage that defines the notation it is erasing.
+
+> **L139:** "The solutions we have given to these problems vary in significance. Some are more true, more profound, more certain, than others. **To show this clearly we have marked every pattern, in the text itself, with two asterisks, or one asterisk, or no asterisks.**"
+
+> **L141:** "In the patterns marked with two asterisks, we believe that we have succeeded in stating a true invariant: in short, that the solution we have stated summarizes a *property* common to *all possible ways* of solving the stated problem… the pattern describes a deep and inescapable property of a well-formed environment."
+
+> **L143:** "In the patterns marked with one asterisk, we believe that we have made some progress towards identifying such an invariant: but that with careful work it will certainly be possible to improve on the solution… Finally, in the patterns without an asterisk, we are certain that we have *not* succeeded in defining a true invariant…"
+
+> **L147:** "And **the asterisks represent our degree of faith in these hypotheses.**"
+
+**Three things this settles, and the jurist should not have to take them on the executor's word.**
+
+1. **"in the text itself"** — Alexander states outright that the marking lives in the text. It is not typography applied to the text; it is the text. Orthography-out, on the ruling's own line.
+2. **The rating is an epistemic claim about each pattern's truth-status** — degree of faith in a hypothesis, on a three-value scale. Flattening it does not lose formatting; it loses the author's stated confidence, which is exactly the class of content the quoted tier exists to guarantee.
+3. **The decisive demonstration is inside the quotation.** L141 contains BOTH uses in one sentence: `*property*` and `*all possible ways*` are genuine markdown emphasis delimiters, which `@3` is right to exclude — while the asterisks the sentence is *about* are content, which `@3` is wrong to exclude. **A blanket `[_*]` cannot tell them apart, and the corpus proves both occur together.** The escape (`\*`) is precisely the signal that distinguishes them, and it is the signal the regex ignores.
+
+**The discriminating test any remedy must pass**, available today in the corpus: under the governing relation, `*property*` must normalize as if the delimiters were absent, AND `COMPOST\*` must remain distinct from `COMPOST\*\*` and from `COMPOST`. If a proposed fix cannot satisfy both against this one source, it is not the fix.
+
 **Files affected:** `engine/fidelity.py` (`_MARKUP_EMPHASIS`, and the `@N` block if bumped); `tests/test_fidelity_v3.py`; `studium-engine/CLAUDE.md` if the governing relation changes.
 **Awaiting:** Steward routing to the jurist. Filed ≠ sent.