From jcowan@reutershealth.com Mon Jan 3 09:30:30 2000 X-Digest-Num: 328 Message-ID: <44114.328.1781.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 12:30:30 -0500 From: John Cowan Subject: Re: On international applications of Lojban X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1781 And Rosta wrote: > I doubt that it was the simplicity per se that was the problem. The > cumbersomeness probably would be a problem. Yes. The world being a complex place, simplicity somewhere must be compensated for by complexity somewhere else. > The little evidence available to me would indicate that lawyers are in fact > shockingly ignorant of lexical semantics even though they practise a > variety of it themselves. Which is compensated for by everyone else's shocking ignorance of law. > A good legal language should have an apparatus > for defining words and for indicating how well-defined words are. Lawyers are, from this viewpoint, semantic practitioners. Legal *theorists*, OTOH, have generally realized the hopelessness of arriving at definitions of words using words. Here are two fine lay commentaries on the subject: Lytton Strachey's "Cardinal Manning", from _Eminent Victorians_: Newman pointed out [...] that it was generally supposed that the [Thirty-Nine] Articles [of the Anglican Church] condemned the doctrine of Purgatory; but they did not; they merely condemned the Romish doctrine of Purgatory; and Romish, clearly, was not the same thing as Roman. Hence it followed that believers in the Roman doctrine of Purgatory might subscribe the Articles with a good conscience. Similarly, the Articles condemned "the sacrifices of masses," but they did not condemn "the sacrifice of the Mass," Thus the Mass might be lawfully celebrated in English Churches [...]. The members of the English Church had ingenuously imagined up to that moment that it was possible to contain in a frame of words the subtle essence of their complicated doctrinal system, involving the mysteries of the Eternal and the Infinite on the one hand, and the elaborate adjustments of temporal government on the other. They did not understand that verbal definitions in such a case will only perform their functions so long as there is no dispute about the matters which they are intended to define: that is to say, so long as there is no need for them. For generations this had been the case with the Thirty-nine Articles. Their drift was clear enough; and nobody bothered over their exact meaning. But directly some one found it important to give them a new and untraditional interpretation, it appeared that they were a mass of ambiguity, and might be twisted into meaning very nearly anything that anybody liked. Steady-going churchmen were appalled and outraged when they saw Newman [...] performing this operation. But, after all, he was only taking the Church of England at its word. And indeed, since Newman showed the way, the operation has become so exceedingly common that the most steady-going churchman hardly raises an eyebrow at it now. Dorothy Sayers, _Unnatural Death_: Mr. Towbridge: "Many words have no legal meaning. Others have a legal meaning very unlike their ordinary meaning. For example, the word 'daffy-down-dilly.' It is a criminal libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly. Ha! Yes, I advise you never to do such a thing. No, I certainly advise you _never_ to do it." [As a further example, Mr. Towbridge cites the word "absolutely", which if used in context A, means nothing; whereas in context B, it has a very definite legal meaning: A) Lawyer: So you want to leave a bequest of #50 to So-and-So? Client: Oh yes, absolutely. [= "Yes"] B) (in will) "I leave a bequest of #50 to So-and-so, absolutely." The result of B is that if So-and-so is dead or cannot accept the bequest, the money goes to the State, whereas if "absolutely" is omitted, it becomes part of the estate general.] -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! || John Cowan Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)