Unused and Probably Unusable

Since I know I *never* commit typos, grammatical errors, solecisms, malapropisms, blatant errors of composition resulting in reversal of intended meaning, or any other sort of language production errors, it delights me no end to pick on others who do. Or more precisely, since I seldom feel comfortable broadcasting my superiority (indeed, invincibility... okay, maybe pseudonymous blogging is going to my head...), I delight when others do the correcting.

So, for example, I like the eggcorn database, where totally comprehensible, somewhat justifiable, and wildly silly reinterpretations (such as "eggcorn" for "acorn" are caught, categorized, tagged and released into the wild. It's like looking at everyone's meta-spellcheck.

I also try not to go overboard making corrections in others' comment spaces. If you blog on something of interest, that's the value; the added value of being corrected (you meant Theirs, not Theres) is minimal. Was your meaning clear? Was the context casual? Was your audience offended? The (usually) obvious answers lead to the conclusion that some typos are okay, and don't detract from the project.

Nevertheless, I found a typo I like, at Chateau D'If, by the blogger dantes (a lawyer in York, PA): The Robe is Off (one in the many, many - many! - posts collected by Howard Bashman about the reaction and backlash to the revelation of the identity of Article III Groupie).

In that post, dantes writes

At any rate, I hope the best for David Lat. I think his unmasking is going to be problematic -- his colleagues and, more significantly, his audience on the 3d Circuit, now know his alterior identity. Here's hoping it's not.

What's the interest? Alterior, a blending of ulterior (as in motive) and alternate. A simple slip of the mind or hand, but also a neat recombination. Was it intentional? Who cares? Like any great work of art, it is its own justification.

Have you got any favorite reinterpretations (eggcorns) or invented words? Bonus points for legal "words."

Since I'm not aware of any Carnival of the Linguists... not that one would need one, since the folks at Language Log are so good at linking to other folks...

Some law-related language and linguistics stuff.

Benjamin Zimmer references eminent legal thinker Chico Marx in the title ("There Ain't No Sanity Clause") of his interesting post on the so-called "liberty clause" of the Constitution - a clause with possibly magical properties, in my view. As Ben points out,

This is, on the face of it, further proof of the cultural divide between legal studies and linguistic studies. A syntactician might think a "one-word clause" in English would need to be an unmodified imperative intransitive verb like "Surrender!" (See Geoffrey Pullum's post on very short sentences.) But of course, the definition of clause in the world of law has nothing to do with syntactic structures. The legal sense, meaning "a distinct article, stipulation, or proviso in a legal document," has a long history in English. (The Oxford English Dictionary offers a quote from Chaucer's Troylus And Criseyde: "He shall me never binde in soche a clause.") Still, could the "liberty clause" really consist of a single word?

The definitive answer: maybe. Check out the post for further updates, including references to Dred Scott, confusion over which part of the Constitution is even involved (14th Amendment? 5th? All of the above?)

There's also a neat post, also at Language Log, about how strange it is to claim that "Scalito" is a diminutive of Scalia - since it isn't, and never was, even though the person who coined the phrase (a journalist) says it is.

Finally in LL matters, there's the amusing situation of artless and, in my view, moronic drafting resulting in a highly ironic result. A statute, clear in intention, designed to protect marriage from incursion, seems to outlaw marriage. Read about how Texas flubs elementary logic in the post Is Marriage Similar or Identical to Itself by Mark Liberman.

I am also moved - almost to tears - by a plaint from Death, a pseudonymous law student (hat tip to Mike at Crime & Federalism). Death (blog name: Death in the Afternoon) mourns the tendency of good writing to disappear under the influence of Law.

Legalizations - meaning specifically the bad language I dub Law-ese - will be reinserted. "The active voice will be trampled and beat back into its passive state. You will no longer use anything, certain objects will be utilized. The court will not find any statute to violate the Constitution, the statute will be held to be unconstitutional by the Court." Death is tilting at windmills, I am afraid. Bad writing is something individual can overcome. There is little to be done, however, about pervasive poor writing - as there is little to be done about pervasive poor thinking.

What we can do is make efforts (where appropriate) to rise above the worst tendencies of lawyers. Take a look in the mirror. Do you abuse jargon? Do you use unwieldy and meaningless phrases because you don't want to be clear and concise? Do you ever use long lists of near-synonyms in order to plug possible loopholes in discovery requests? Do you take refuge in obfuscation?

I was particularly amused by the comment from Evan that Death should relax - partners seldom have time to do a really thorough job of editing your work anyway. A grim hope to hang onto.

In fact, partners (or more-experienced lawyers) may know exactly what they are doing when they beat all the style and rhythm and creativity out of writing. That's because some writing is more than just an amusement. It serves legal purposes - it requests admissions, it crafts demands, it parries, it may even have the force of law, if adopted by a court. In such situations, a young enthusiast's eagerness to inject flavor can do unwitting harm.

I wonder how many junior associates have decided that the memo at hand would be ever so much cleaner if those annoying stock phrases were taken out and replaced with something neat and in plain English... only to be later told that the stock phrase was required, and they'd better revert all their changes, and not get any more bright ideas.

More law-related language and linguistics posts and news as I come across them.