Lawyers spend their whole lives working with words.
It is interesting to observe the way in which the Macquarie Dictionary , with its particular emphasis on Australian English usage, is gradually taking over the primacy of dictionary citation from the much honoured Oxford Shorter English Dictionary , in cases before Australian courts. Sometimes, the same English word will have a slightly different connotation in Australia, making the use of a specifically English dictionary of the language risky or even misleading. It may conjure up quite different notions in Australia than it does in England. In the United States, there is a suggestion that the courts are increasingly relying on dictionaries. Australian lawyers tend to have several dictionaries and a Thesaurus close at hand as they labour in the garden of words.