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Re: Legal English (was RE: Using M-dash and N-dash?)
Subject:Re: Legal English (was RE: Using M-dash and N-dash?) From:eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com To:"Downing, David" <DavidDowning -at- Users -dot- com> Date:Wed, 11 Feb 2004 14:35:58 -0500
"Downing, David" <DavidDowning -at- Users -dot- com> wrote on 02/11/2004 02:03:29 PM:
> Legal documents must be written in such a way as to
> guarantee that everything you want someone to know and
> act on is spelled out.
The nasty thing about legal writing though is that it doesn't strive to
avoid confusion and encourage clarity by using clear and concise writing
to avoid court cases in the first place.
Instead it strives to use whatever phrases have already been through the
courts and have been interpreted in a way that the writer wants.
So, invariably the least clear and most convoluted writing becomes the
norm as the more convoluted it is the more chance it has already been
challenged in court and in such case has a fairly definitive
definition/interpretation. :p
