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1/01 - Barbiturates
This month, in my continuing campaign to repair our broken English, I want to say just one word: "Barbituates." Some people -- even some lawyers -- claim that Marilyn Monroe died from an overdose of them. But that's impossible. Because there are no such things as barbituates. The "...barbitol" drugs are "barbiturates," not "barbituates." Mispronouncing that one makes a professional sound like an amateur. So let's not do it.
2/01 - Disperse / Disburse
This month, I want to talk about a pair of words that are sometimes confused. They are disburse (d-I-s-b-u-r-s-e) and disperse (d-I-s-p-e-r-s-e) . My subscriber Millard Ingraham tells me that he sometimes gets letters from other lawyers asking him to disperse (d-I-s-p-e-r-s-e) funds. That's incorrect, of course, because (d-I-s-p-e-r-s-e) means to scatter, and that's not what you want done with your money. D-I-s-b-u-r-s-e means to pay out, which is, I'm sure, what those lawyers really mean. Maybe it's the typist's fault, so be careful to spell it out when dictating.
3/01 - Reluctant, reticent, recalcitrant
Every month I try to take a step toward repairing our broken English. But, believe me, I'm not claiming to be an authority or pretending that my own speech is above reproach. I'm just trying to get us all to think a little more about the way we speak. My subscriber Danny Lang called me the other day to point out that I've been using forms of the word "awful" to mean "a great deal," as in "I'm awfully sorry." That's something good speakers should avoid, and I'm going to try to avoid it in the future. This month I want to look at three words that are often confused with each other: "reluctant," "reticent," and "recalcitrant." Their meanings are related, but they are not interchangeable. "Reluctant" means "unwilling" or "hesitant." "Reticent" specifically means "unwilling to speak or to reveal one's feelings." And "recalcitrant" means "unwilling to follow rules or to respect authority." For each purpose, there is a different word. Let's try to use the right ones. If you catch me in an error, by all means let me know. But don't be too surprised. I try to talk good but I ain't always successful.
4/01 - Prescriptive / Descriptive approach
You know that I spend about a minute every month trying to repair our broken English. And I do intend to continue. But my friend and subscriber David Grey repeatedly reminds me that if language had hard and fast rules that never changed, we'd all be talking like Chaucer. He calls this unbending analysis the prescriptive approach. On the other hand, Grey says that the descriptive approach accepts the way erudite speakers and writers use language as the standard of correctness. I'll try to remember that and be a little less doctrinaire about it in the future. Since we are reading and listening to erudite speakers, though, I promise that there will be no subliminable messages on these tapes.
5/01 - Daylight saving
I spend some time every month trying to repair our broken English, and that makes me vulnerable, because my English isn't perfect either. For example, my friend and subscriber Ed Nevin pointed out that I've been pronouncing the word "li-a-ble" as if it only had two syllables. So this month, instead of talking about pronunciation, I'm going to ask you about a bit of linguistic esoterica. Do you spell "Daylight Savings Time" with or without an apostrophe before the "s" at the end of "Savings?" It's a trick question, because there is no "s" at the end. Daylight Saving Time was a concept invented during World War I to save electricity by turning the clocks ahead so that the sun would seem to go down an hour later. Of course that means it rises an hour later, too, but most people don't get up early enough to notice it. When the days start getting shorter, though, we have to turn the clocks back so it will be light by the time the courthouse opens. The federal law establishing Daylight Saving Time was repealed after World War II, but CA adopted the Daylight Saving Time Act by voter initiative in 1949. Look it up if you don't believe me. It's Daylight Saving Time. Saving, not Savings.
6/01 - Homophone, neologism
This month, in the process of repairing our broken English, I'm going to draw on the cases we are discussing. One of them confuses the homophones "discreet" and "discrete." Homophones are words that sound alike, but have different meanings or are spelled differently. "Discr-e-e-t" means prudent or unobtrusive, while "discr-e-t-e" means individual or standing alone. The spelling determines the meaning. Remember that if you're writing, and if you're dictating keep an eye on your secretary. Another expression that appears in this month's cases is not an error at all, but a neologism, or recently coined phrase: "Catch 22." It's the title of one of my favorite books, written by Joseph Heller. It refers to a fictitious military regulation providing that a pilot can be relieved of flying combat missions only if he is insane and requests to be relieved. But if he requests to be relieved, it must be because he's afraid of being shot down and killed, which means he's sane and can not be relieved. On the other hand, if he does not request to be relieved, it must mean that he's not afraid of being shot down and killed, so he is obviously insane, but he still can't be relieved because he hasn't requested to be. That's some catch, that Catch 22. A Catch 22 is a problem the only solution to which is made impossible by one of the features of the problem. The world seems to be full of them some times.
7/01 - The Great Reality Checker
Instead of repairing our broken English as I usually do, I'm going to vary the format a bit this month. On the last tape, I spoke of neologisms: newly coined expressions. The cyber age has spawned quite a few. One is the term "reality check." A reality check is an act or inquiry designed to demonstrate the difference between the virtual world and the real world, between fantasy and reality. Like when your computer says you're in the middle of the worst storm in the history of the planet and you look out your window to see that the sun is shining. That's a reality check.
There's a wonderful scene in the film Casablanca. Maybe you remember it. Captain Renault has been directed to close down Rick's cafe and when pressed for a reason, he says "I am shocked ... shocked to find that gambling is going on here." Just then a croupier hands him a bundle of money and says, "Your winnings, sir." To which Renault replies, "Thank you very much." In effect, that croupier was performing a reality check.
In 1991, in Mary M, CASC held that when a police officer raped a motorist whom he had arrested for a traffic violation, he was acting in the scope of employment, because his misconduct was not startling in view of the special nature of his job and the power that is attached to it. But the court seemed to regret its decision almost immediately. Just a few years later, in Farmers v County, it held that guards in the county jail were not acting within the scope of employment when they harassed a female deputy who was working there, because their conduct was too startling to be foreseeable. Justice Mosk dissented. He said that, like Captain Renault, the majority was professing to be "shocked, shocked to find that [sexual harassment was] going on." He called their pretense naieve, and said that in the rough and tumble lockerroom atmosphere of that traditionally maledominated and recently sexually integrated workplace such conduct cannot even be called unusual, let alone startling. Justice Mosk, The Great Dissenter, held the unofficial position of Supreme Court reality checker. No one could cut through bullshit the way he could. I see a couple of Justices who may inherit that position. But there will never be another Stanley Mosk. I never met him, but I'm sure going to miss him.
8/01 - About "Newspeak"
In his novel "1984," George Orwell created a dialect called "Newspeak," in which words were deliberately eliminated from language to inhibit the ability of people to think for themselves. This month, in my continuing campaign to repair our broken English, I want to warn about a kind of self-imposed Newspeak that tends to substitute trendy buzz words for expressions with more precise meanings. I've noticed the word "about" being used that way lately. Here, I'll read from a booklet I happened to see on Diabetes. It says, "Eating right with diabetes is no longer about following a diet. It's about making healthy food choices..." Now wouldn't it be more expressive to say, "Eating right with diabetes is no longer accomplished by simply following a diet. It requires making healthy choices." Don't say, "My practice is about getting just compensation for accident victims," when what you mean is, "In my practice, I work toward getting just compensation for accident victims." After all, isn't being a lawyer about using language as precisely as possible? Er, I mean, Shouldn't lawyers use language as precisely as possible. See, it's easy to fall into that trap, isn't it?
9/01 - Dignifying criminals
This month, in my continuing campaign to repair our broken English, I want to talk about some expressions that are not wrong, but that I regard as inappropriate. I once heard comedian Jerry Seinfeld do a routine about the fact that after cops hit a guy with their sticks, throw him to the ground, and twist his arms behind his back to handcuff him, they put their hands on his head so he won't hurt himself while getting into the police car. I feel the same way about some of the language we use when talking about brutal criminals. For example, I recently heard a broadcaster say, "Mr. Gotti was known as the Teflon don." Webster says "Mister" is an expression of respect. Do we really want to express respect for this lowlife? Or how about the police officer who, in an interview, says something like, "Then the gentleman threw the victim to the ground, raped her, and attempted to strangle her." This bum is a gentleman?? Then, after they are convicted, we say they are serving a sentence. Serving? Who is being served? And by whom? I'm not saying that these expressions are incorrect; just that I don't like them. I try not to use them. To me, NYC's fallen godfather is just Gotti, not Mister Gotti, and certainly not a gentleman. And he isn't serving time; he's doing time.
10/01 - Lawyertalk
Let's talk about repairing our broken English for a moment. In a case we recently discussed, the Court pointed out that although lawyers are, on the whole, interesting people who can talk without putting you to sleep, they tend to get dull and pompous on paper. So why do we write things that would make us laugh if someone spoke them? One way to avoid that is to read aloud what you've written before you send it out. You really don't have to use expressions like "Now comes this plaintiff ... " and you certainly would not say, "Good morning. How are you on said morning?" Let's try to write as interestingly as we speak.
11/01 - Gavels
This month, instead of repairing our broken English, I want to bring up something that really irks me about the way TV and movie producers have turned our courts into auction houses. A judge in a movie or TV show can't seem to say anything without banging a gavel. "This court now stands adjourned." Bang! "I sentence you to fifteen years." Bang! Have you ever seen a gavel in a real courtroom? If you ask the producers why they do that, I'm sure they'd say it's because the public has come to expect it. But where did the public get such an expectation. From the movies and TV shows; that's where. Hey, Hollywood. If you're listening, auctioneers drop the hammer, not judges.
12/01 - Repetitious redundancies
This month, in my continuing campaign to repair our broken English, I want to take you into the department of redundancy department. Careful writers and speakers should try to avoid expressions that are repetitiously redundant, like a small little house, or the exact same thing. We should also try to avoid hidden redundancies, like brutally beaten to death (is there any other way?), or whether or not, since "whether" includes not. And how about pin number or vin number? "Pin" stands for personal identification number; "vin" stands for vehicle identification number. The word "number" is already in there. Two redundancies of which courts and lawyers are guilty all the time are class action lawsuit, which is like saying class action action, and SLAPP suit. The L in SLAPP stands for lawsuit. I do it too, but I'm going to try not to.
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