The law tells us that lawyers are morons
Sighz. I'm sure Rae gets this a lot but why are laws so stupid sometimes? No no, I'm not talking about the stupidity in terms of their actual substantive effect on society. I'm talking about an even more primitive level, for eg:
Non-exempt income is NOT exempt income.
(okay, okay...there actually are some nuances to this but still. Why don't they just name the different category of things something else? This sounds so degrading)
Eg. 2:
Definition: Ordinary income is income according to ordinary principles.
............
And this is only in taxation law. I have encountered lots more in all the other kinds of law I have done.
And I think judges keep using double negatives because they are afraid of their own shadows. They just want to be able to find a loop hole in their double negatives so that next time they can say that what they said in one case is different from how it would be applied here. But really, if they just said it straight out w/o the double negative it would STILL be loophole-able okay? It's all playing w/ the words anyway.
At least ridding the world of them damn double negatives would save trees and administrative costs and less law students would commit suicide.
The worst horror is when you read so many of them that you start writing and THINKING like that too. ARGHH!!!!! Somebody shoot me now!!!!
Non-exempt income is NOT exempt income.
(okay, okay...there actually are some nuances to this but still. Why don't they just name the different category of things something else? This sounds so degrading)
Eg. 2:
Definition: Ordinary income is income according to ordinary principles.
............
And this is only in taxation law. I have encountered lots more in all the other kinds of law I have done.
And I think judges keep using double negatives because they are afraid of their own shadows. They just want to be able to find a loop hole in their double negatives so that next time they can say that what they said in one case is different from how it would be applied here. But really, if they just said it straight out w/o the double negative it would STILL be loophole-able okay? It's all playing w/ the words anyway.
At least ridding the world of them damn double negatives would save trees and administrative costs and less law students would commit suicide.
The worst horror is when you read so many of them that you start writing and THINKING like that too. ARGHH!!!!! Somebody shoot me now!!!!
posted by A.Yu at 5:02 PM
5 Comments:
Did you know that it was always my mom's wish that I do law...hence the name.
Something makes me so glad that I turned out to be as rebellious as I was and that I went against those wishes. Hee.
UM. I think that having such self-explanatory terms are brilliant. It's so much more complicated studying when you have differing terms for anatomical structures for example, and you need to know them because the farmer/vet/client can refer to them by either of their names.
And when you have to memorise stuff wholesale for biochem and stuff, it's really really good when they put the simplest name to something.
i'm commenting on a post which is dated april 25..
i don't read blogs regularly, especially recently since i havent been in school with internet all the time, and when i do and want to comment, i wonder if the comment would be too outdated.. usually i comment at the correct post, but if it's too many posts ago, i wonder if anyone would see it :)
All your chicken and beef talk is making me Very Hungry.
And yes, get that a lot. Aiyah, sometimes law is just very funny that way lah. I can't think of any offhand right now, though.
Rachel
"Acts of terrorism are not excluded."
Just say it's included damn it! It's just so easy to misread double negatives.
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