On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 10:26 AM, Christopher Sean Morrison <brl...@mac.com> wrote:
I would caution that many seemingly ordinary words can take on a different > or more specific legal meaning in court. Indeed. From Dorothy Sayers's novel _Unnatural Death_: 'You are too easily surprised,' said Mr. Towkington. 'Many words have no legal meaning. Others have a legal meaning very unlike their ordinary meaning. For example, the word "daffy-down-dilly". It is a criminal libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly. ha! Yes, I advise you never to do such a thing. No, I certainly advise you never to do it. Then again, words which are quite meaningless in your ordinary conversation may have a meaning in law. For instance, I might say to a young man like yourself, "You wish to leave such-and-such property to so-and-so." And you would very likely reply, "Oh, yes, absolutely" -- meaning nothing in particular by that. But if you were to write in your will, "I leave such-and-such property to so-and-so absolutely," then that word would bear a definite legal meaning, and would condition your bequest in a certain manner, and might even prove an embarrassment and produce results very far from your actual intentions. Eh, ha! You see?' ["Daffy-down-dilly" was 16C legal slang for a lawyer who took money from both sides of a litigation, and as such a very serious charge indeed, tending to produce a breach of the peace.] -- John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan co...@ccil.org "After all, would you consider a man without honor wealthy, even if his Dinar laid end to end would reach from here to the Temple of Toplat?" "No, I wouldn't", the beggar replied. "Why is that?" the Master asked. "A Dinar doesn't go very far these days, Master. --Kehlog Albran Besides, the Temple of Toplat is across the street." The Profit
_______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
