词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Law and Language

Broadcast on "Coast to Coast": November 21, 2002

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble and this week on Wordmaster -- language and the law.

RS: That's what our guest today writes about in a column for The Green Bag, which calls itself "An Entertaining Journal of Law." David Franklin is a visiting professor at New York's Cardozo Law School, and was a clerk on the U-S Supreme¹ Court.

AA: David Franklin says lawyers use words as tools of the trade, but in many cases misuse² them.

FRANKLIN: "First of all, lawyers have a big tendency to use Latinate rather than Anglo-Saxon words. So they'll say things like 'substantial' and 'significant,' instead of 'big' or 'large' or 'great.' Lawyers like to use words that sound sort of imposing³, rather than simple words. So lawyers 'draft' documents instead of 'writing' them, and they 'review' documents instead of 'reading' them. And everything is a 'document,' not a 'book' or a 'paper' or a 'newspaper article.'"

AA: "What about the civilian⁴ population, those of us who are not lawyers who nevertheless seem to sound like ones when we talk these days."

RS: "Are we finding that because the lawyers speak this way, we end up speaking this way?"

FRANKLIN: "I think there is some of that, and I'm not exactly sure why that is. Some of it is probably due to all of the crime shows on TV that are so popular. Some of it is probably also due to the fact that a lot of the politicians who monopolize⁵ the airwaves are lawyers or former lawyers.

"Another bad tendency that lawyers have is to use two words where one will do. So lawyers have a tendency to say things like 'prior to' when they mean 'before,' or 'subsequent to' when they mean 鈥榓fter,鈥?or 'in the event that' where they mean 'if,' or 'with respect to' -- that's a lawyer's favorite, which just means 'about.' So I think there's more and more use of those sorts of circumlocutions by non-lawyers because they hear them around and they're in the air."

RS: "I bet freshman⁶ English teachers at universities probably cross those words out quite a bit."

FRANKLIN: "Yeah, there's probably a lot of red pencils working on those words even as we speak."

RS: "Mister Franklin, do you have a pet peeve⁷?"

FRANKLIN: "(laughs) That's one of them. I think lawyers have a tendency to use the term 'fails to' to mean simply doesn't or can't. So they'll say 'if you fail to meet your deadline, certain results will follow.' I think that's sort of a fudge word, one of that really means 'if you don't get your paper in, I'll give you an F."

AA: "Well, you know what's funny, reporters do that a lot too. You see that in a lot in stories where what would be more appropriate would be to say 'does not' or 'did not.' I mean, 'failed to,' I remember someone pointing out to me, really meant you had made an effort but did not succeed."

FRANKLIN: "Right, 'I failed to get my golf score down to a zero handicap' -- meaning I tried but didn't get there. Another pet peeve that I have is nominalizations. And I think lawyers do lead the way in this bad direction. Lawyers have a tendency to convert verbs into nouns. So often we talk about the opposite, where people convert nouns into verbs and they say, you know, 'that movie really impacted me emotionally.' But I think lawyers have the tendency to go in the other direction. So instead of talking about what someone knows, they'll say 'did you have knowledge of Mister Smith's activities? Did you have knowledge of Mister Smith's conduct?"

RS: "Instead of did you know about his conduct."

FRANKLIN: "'Did you know what Mister Smith was doing?' So they've avoided knowing and doing and they've put them into noun forms, knowledge and activity. Or they'll say 'an adequate justification⁸ was not provided for the employee's termination.' Which simply means no one told us why the guy was fired."

AA: David Franklin is a visiting professor at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City, and a contributor to the law journal, The Green Bag.

RS: And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our programs are on the Web at voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is [email protected]. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

MUSIC: "Talk to My Lawyer"/Chuck Brodsky

1 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

2 misuse   

n.误用，滥用；vt.误用，滥用

参考例句：

• It disturbs me profoundly that you so misuse your talents.你如此滥用自己的才能，使我深感不安。
• He was sacked for computer misuse.他因滥用计算机而被解雇了。

3 imposing   

adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的

参考例句：

• The fortress is an imposing building.这座城堡是一座宏伟的建筑。
• He has lost his imposing appearance.他已失去堂堂仪表。

4 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

5 monopolize   

v.垄断，独占，专营

参考例句：

• She tried to monopolize his time.她想独占他的时间。
• They are controlling so much cocoa that they are virtually monopolizing the market.他们控制了大量的可可粉，因此他们几乎垄断了整个市场。

6 freshman   

n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女)

参考例句：

• Jack decided to live in during his freshman year at college.杰克决定大一时住校。
• He is a freshman in the show business.他在演艺界是一名新手。

7 peeve   

v.气恼，怨恨；n.麻烦的事物，怨恨

参考例句：

• She was in a peeve over it.她对这很气恼。
• She was very peeved about being left out.她为被遗漏而恼怒。

8 justification   

n.正当的理由；辩解的理由

参考例句：

• There's no justification for dividing the company into smaller units. 没有理由把公司划分成小单位。
• In the young there is a justification for this feeling. 在年轻人中有这种感觉是有理由的。