Oregon Legal Research Blog
Justice Bedsworth in August 2010 Criminal Waste of Space column in the OC Lawyer Magazine, wondering what it all means, gives a small cry in the wilderness of misused, mispronounced, and made up words. Humpty-Dumpty would have been proud.**
Excerpt: ‘… When someone asks you to “tell us in your own words what happened,” they don’t mean you should use YOUR OWN WORDS! They mean, “Use OUR words—English words, real words, words we’re all familiar with—in your own combinations, to tell us what happened.”
What in . . . heck . . . does it mean to say, “My level of pissivity was pretty high”? That’s not communication, that’s the Red Queen’s Tea Party.
If the jury has the collective brains of a flock of sparrows, and comes back with a question about what that means, some poor judge is gonna have to give an instruction on it. What’s she gonna say, “It means maybe I shoulda stayed in the DA’s Office”?…‘ (Link to full August 2010 article in the OC Lawyer Magazine.)
**Humpty Dumpty: ‘…“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.”…’ (Link to full Wikipedia entry.)