Sunday Lexico-Neuroticism
Wandering the N&B archives recently, I tripped over Isaac Zaur's weekly "Sunday Literary-ism" posts. Click here and scroll down -- they are a pleasure. For the rest of this summer (and perhaps beyond) I will attempt to follow in his footsteps with my own weekly offering.
Mine, however, shall spotlight abuses of the English language, perpetrated in the course of paid practice, by justices, judges, or lawyers. Like adultery, foot-funk, and alcoholic fathers, the first step in overcoming slovenly legal prose is to acknowledge and learn from its presence. I'm not demanding you change your own usage in light of these posts, but my guess is that once you think about it, you'll want to.
To keep me on my toes, I will limit myself to atrocities I have encountered in the seven days immediately preceding the post. To keep you on your toes, I will not share what is wrong with the quoted passage. And I promise, there is something wrong; this isn't 'Nam, this is language. There are rules.
This week's cringe is brought to you by Justice Rehnquist, of the United States Supreme Court:
Mine, however, shall spotlight abuses of the English language, perpetrated in the course of paid practice, by justices, judges, or lawyers. Like adultery, foot-funk, and alcoholic fathers, the first step in overcoming slovenly legal prose is to acknowledge and learn from its presence. I'm not demanding you change your own usage in light of these posts, but my guess is that once you think about it, you'll want to.
To keep me on my toes, I will limit myself to atrocities I have encountered in the seven days immediately preceding the post. To keep you on your toes, I will not share what is wrong with the quoted passage. And I promise, there is something wrong; this isn't 'Nam, this is language. There are rules.
This week's cringe is brought to you by Justice Rehnquist, of the United States Supreme Court:
[Joeseph] Dacies made a concerted effort to speak with people who were familiar with competent black bricklayers and then hired a large number of black bricklayers. Furnco Constr. Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 581 n.9 (1978).
Labels: Grammar Snarks
posted by Patrick Bageant at 10:55 PM
24 Comments:
persons? Not people?
Nah. It's unclear who is doing the hiring -- Dacies or the people familiar with black bricklayers.
Not an especially apparent problem in legal prose...but I think this is the start of a great, great tradition just the same.
(Incidentally, along these lines, how much credit should we give John Roberts for his reference to Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone in an opinion a few weeks back? He quoted the money line as, "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose." Everyone burnout 60s-phile knows the line is "When you ain't got nothing..." I say A for effort, C for execution.)
Patrick, are you auditioning for a clerkship with Scalia? He would be proud...
What was the effort geared toward, EW? Demonstrating a connection with normal people and normal culture? Being groovy?
Roberts gets a C for effort, and a D- for execution. The charm of the lyric comes from "ain't got nothing," a phrase which makes no sense in a boolean way, but which is crystal clear coming from the mouths of those who say it. Butchering it is classic douche.
His clerk, on the other hand, gets an A/C.
Re. quoted passage in this post: neither suggestion is what I was looking for.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Is it bad grammar to say "hired a large number..."? Or is it that he should have put a comma between "competent" and "black"?
My first reaction was same as earl's.
Here's a mildly controversial one for you to tackle in a future installment of grammar-nazism: "diverse."
"Diverse" used to be an adjective that applied only to plural nouns or singular nouns that were understood to stand in for a set of multiple things, e.g. "a diverse group of people." Nowadays it's commonly attached to a single thing, e.g. "please tell the admissions committee what makes you diverse." The same phenomenon is evident with "diversity," the noun form. E.g. "My diversity is not a result of the fact that I have black skin, but a result of my life experience."
What do you think? Abuse of the English language, or a beautiful example of the way that language is always changing and evolving?
As for me personally, I think prescriptive grammar is mildly oppressive and mostly just silly. Didn't Shakespeare invent dozens of new words? Isn't the most interesting thing about grammar the way it allows linguistic innovators like Dylan to express their ideas in novel ways? As long as you understand me, is it so bad to boldy split my infinitives? And why can't I end my sentences with a preposition if I want to?
I think I understand the late CJ just fine. If bricks were often black instead of red or brown, or if a lot of civil rights litigation focused on the color bricks, then there might be a problem. But under the circumstances, I don't have any commplaint as a reader.
All good points, 1:32. Don't worry -- as far as I am concerned, you can end your sentences with prepositions when you want to. Likewise, to boldly split your infinitives is fine. But to slopplily split them is solvenly. As your comment shows, you know what you are doing, and consciously throw the rule under the wheel for the sake of clarity, or style, or precision. Props to that.
The issue with the quoted passage (as Matt correctly identified in an email to me night) is with the word "concerted."
A concerted effort is a joint effort -- i.e., an effort made in concert. An individual cannot make a proper concerted effort.
It is true that various dictionaries define "concerted" as something like, "try really hard." While this is certainly how many people today use the term (and as an arbitrary system based on convention, doesn't everything in language come down to usage?) I don't think its the best way to use it, because it raises more questions than it answers.
Even raising more questions than answers isn't necessarily a bad thing. The best poetry, jokes, and dirty pop song lyrics all exploit this type of ambiguity to delightful effect. But it is undesirable in law, where acting in concert is very different from trying really hard.
Judging by past years, CLR calls will be going out sometime approximately this week...
Jesus Christ you people are anal.
i <3 8:26.
Patrick, if you want to be stylistically anal, don't begin a sentence with "And."
Quite the opposite 11:22. Beginning sentences with "And" or "But" is very useful for simple, effective writing. The faux-grammar snobs like you are the ones who butcher simple English in some Quixotic effort to enforce a non-existent "rule." And it's stupid.
Armen is right. The so-called and/but rule is silly, and it borders on hypercorrection. Think about it. A ban on beginning sentences with conjunctions would include all kinds of useful words, like: however, after, even though, since, because, both, either, so . . . the list goes on.
Because they can be useful, its fine to introduce a sentence with any of those.
Patrick, I believe you mean it's.
(couldn't help myself :) )
lol. yes.
When is Shelanski going to provide us with sample answers for the Antitrust final exam like he promised a month ago.
I think the biggest problem here is referring to Justice Rehnquist without preceding his name by "the late" and then exacerbating the problem by calling him "of the Supreme Court" which he is not.
What's wrong with of the SC? Rehnquist wasn't CJ when he wrote that opinion.
How does CLR alert you if you have been selected? Via telephone or mail?
How does CLR alert you, via mail or telephone?
Phone calls come first, and mailings arrive a few days to a week later...
"And" (and "but") can be used to begin a sentence, as efficient transitional tools (efficient as short monosyllables whose meaning is utterly plain and universally understood). But, they should only be so employed in moderation -- otherwise it sounds like you're an idiot who can't think even a sentence ahead. And people who write "its" (possessive pronoun) when they mean the contraction for "it is" (subject pronoun + present tense "be") drive me fucking crazy, Patrick.
It's something that drives me crazy, too. Typos happen.
Post a Comment
<< Home