Posted by Eugene Volokh: I Blame Justice Douglas: A friend of mine just reminded me that the generally accepted spelling is "haled before a court," not "hailed before a court." I usually use "[1]haled," I think, but [2]in a recent post (which I've since corrected) I used "hailed" instead. I blame Justice Douglas, since my sentence tracked his dissent in Beauharnais v. Illinois, which used "hailed." Impressionable law students: Don't get sucked into that usage yourself.
Note that I'm generally a descriptivist on usage, so I resist many claims that a common usage is "wrong." But "hailed into court" is still used very rarely by courts, compared to "haled into court," so I'm not sure it's really common usage yet. Moreover, it's especially important for lawyers not just to be right, but to look right. Even if you have a good descriptivist argument to defend your using "hailed," the safer bet is to say "haled." References 1. http://www.bartleby.com/61/96/H0019600.html 2. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_02_27-2005_03_05.shtml#1109869355 _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
