Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1885-04-30
Language and Law.

of laws, and many people are endeavor-
ing to interpret them. Some of these
legal provisions will require for their
Interpretation an "opinion'' by the At
torney-G General a decision by
the Supreme Court.
Why is it that Legislators, above others
who use language to express their
thoughts, fail so signally to state their
meaning clearly, precisely and unequiv-
ocally? OF this tendency to inaccu-
racy and the misuse of language, por-
ton doubtless has its origin in popular
habits of speech.
For instance, American parents still
teach their childen to call cents "pen-
nies.n With as much propriety cents
might be called ''denarii," or ''scudi,"
or ''tlacos.n Generations ago pennies
were in use in this country, and so long,
by the force of habit and imitation, has
the use of the word survived the use of
the thing itself. 1t is quite common,
and with professional temperance lee
turers and writer's almost an unvarying
habit, to speak of the rum power,
''rum selling,n and s'rum drinking"
when in fact hardly anybody drinks
rum or sells it as drink. Generations
ago the English-speaking people were
in the habit of drinking rum. and allu-
sions to this habit had their proper
place in literature, but the use of such
terms by writers of to-day is sheer
thoughtless, parrot-like imitation So
English writers usually describe per-
son who has no money as .'penniless,
and the term is correct enough when
applied to moneyless person in Eng
land. Not so when American writers,
in thoughtless imitation, apply the term
to persons in this country, where the
wealthiest persons, however fat their
pocket-books, are almost always penni-
less-that is, without penny. Ameri-
can law books are full of terms properly
applied only to things in England
things which have no existence in this
country.
Another example of legal inaccuracy:
The Supreme Court of this state has Of
ten had to pass upon questions concern
ing land on one side of which is road
or stream, where the owners fee ex-
tends to the middle of the stream or
road Subject in the latter case to the
public easemenD. In such cases the
court has usually used the phrases,
''center of the way and "center of
the stream" Now, the judges. being
educated men, have probably studied
geometry and know that center is a
point and not a line, and the boundary
of land must be q line and not point,
so that if the road or the stream could
properly be said to have center (Which
it cannot), it would still be improper to
say that a mans land extended to the
center of the road or stream. The
judges should have been put in mind of
the proper expression by the Latin
phrases applied to such cases: 'ad med
ium filum vi@" or "ad medium filum
aqu@" to the middle line of the road, or
water. Law Latin is often bad, but in
this case it is better than law English
This misuse of the word center is not
peculiar to our court reports; it disfig-
ures the convention of the state of Wis
consin and the act of Congress fixing
the boundaries of this state. Perhaps
it has never done any direct harm, but
it is an indication of carelessness, and
carelessness in the solemn acts of a high
tribunal is a great vice.
Law literature is the last refuge of
many of the obsolete terms and usages
which were current in the earlier and
ruder stages of our language. Some of
them are merely uncouth; others, as
'.holden'' and proven are only harm
less, while others have mischievous
tendency to mislead and confuse, as the
use of the word determine in the OBJ
solete sense of terminate" Still an
other class are the anomalous and OBJ
solescent (I wish | could say obsolete)
compounds of ''there" with propositions
as " herewith Hereunder" etc.
They are unphilosophical and unsystem-
attic, because "theren is an adyerb and
the sense in such cases requires a pro-
noun. The people feel this anomaly,
and the use of most of these compounds
in conversation, or even in general liter
ature, is justly looked upon as an affec-
tation but every chapter of our laws
bristles with them in every form.
But it is especially in forms" that
law literature revels in barbarous jar
gon, sprinkled thickly with Latin the
Romans never knew and French which
was obsolete in France 800 years ago,
the construction excruciat;ng beyond
degree. If the ''form" relates to real
estate it is full of the relics of barbar-
Gus past, when a great robber chief
took the land from the outraged inhabi-
tants and parcelled it out among the
lesser robber chiefs, whose holdings
were called 'feudal tenures." If the
''formn relates to crime, there are
still the remnants of the same brutal
and bloody past-relics as ridiculous
now as terrible then. Say the indict-
ment is for arson-the prosecutor must
solemnly allege that the crime was COM
mitted with force and arms" even
though in fact it was Gas it almost al
ways isl committed with stealth and
match And so with some wrongs
which are necessarily committed with
smooth PERSUASION. Even with the
plainest evidence, such eviIdoers cannot
be convicted unless the ridiculous false
hood is solemnly alleged. And this
must be done because thousand years
ago or more. when kings could not
write and mobiles" and gentlemen
were brutal and murderous ruffians,
some law-maker with smattering of
Latin decided that in actions for GER
tain class of wrongs, the wrong must be