QUAINT LEGAL TERMS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 19 January 1931, Page 8

QUAINT LEGAL TERMS

NORMAN-FRENCH SURVIVALS

MEANINGS STRICTLY DEFINED LANGUAGE OF THE LAW “The language of the law” is in the minds of most people a synonym for pedantry and obscurity and the interweaving of words so as to bring chaos out of ordep and confusion out of plain fact. But that is a somewhat hasty judgment, and like most such judgments requires to he revised upon fur-< ther investigation. Legal phrases that sound so quaint and formal to the layman have a history, and often a most interesting one. Their exact significance lias been thrashed out by trained minds a thousand times and is probably the subject of a sgore of weighty recorded judicial decisions. For the essence of the law is exactness, and while a loose and undefined meaning serves well enough in ordinary conversation the processes of the law soon require that strict bounds be determined for every term that is used. The result is that many common words possess a restricted and highly specialised meaning when they come to he embodied in legal phraseology. Everyone knows well enough for instance .what “old age” is, and would be prepared to define it in the light of his conception of bis own distance from that period. The law, however, ruthlessly disregards personal prejudices in the matter and declares that as regards relief by a friendly society old a'ge means any age after SO. “Rubbish” is a term which could not very well be misunderstood, hut the law has its own careful definition of it as “things which have become valueless to the owner and the property which he has abandoned.”

THE WORD PARAPHERNATION “Paraphernation” we all know and have duly execrated on holiday travels, but how many would recognise it when defined as “the gifts which the wife claims above her dower or jointure after her husband’s death, as furniture for her chamber, wearing apparel and jewels which are not put up into the inventory of her husband?” And here is legal light on another common word. The adaptor of a foreign drama who introduces into his version, material alterations is-the “author” of a dramatic piece. Moreover the reporter of a speech verbatim is the “author” of the report if the speaker claims no rights in the speech. One is reminded of the attitude of Lewis Carroll’s immortal Hunipty Dumpty who said “in a rather scorn.-, ful tone,” “when I .use a word it means just what I choose it, to meaii. Neither more nor less.” ..Api'djw’heh Alice very properly raised the question “whether you can -make words mean so many things” Hunipty Dumpty had his answer. “The.question is,” he said, “who ’is to be master?- That is all.” ' ; .yh • . • ' e-2

A great many of the ' strange and quaint terms of the law and survivals, of the days when Norman French, or “law French” was the language of The. English courts of law. The “Oyez. oyez! oyez!” of the court crier before the opening of criminal sessions is just French for “hear yej”.. So ;.oE.“escheat,’ deodand,” “messuage,” “curtilage; 'and hosts more. “EschatJ" says' ait old standard definition, “is a- word of art and signifieth property when by accident the lands fall to the lord of whom they are bolden in which case we say the fee is escheated, the ’accident’; being the death of the owner, without an heir and intestate. If there is a mesne lord the escheat is to him, 'lf not, to the king.” - Vy A ROMANTIC WORD The word “deodand” has a romantic old world flavour which its meaning justifies, for its signifies “the ..thing, given or rather forfeited to; God'.fo.r the pacification of His wrath in "-the case, of misadventure whereby any Christian man commeth to a violent- end without the fault of any reasonable -creature.”

“Messuage” is a w.orct ' “synonymous with, or at least as comprehensive as, house or dwelling-house and includes the unfinished carcase of a house. “Curtilage” is a garden, veard,-field, or piece of void ground lying near and belonging to the messuage.” “Emblements” are the crop which a tenant can take off the land after the lease has expired. A deed delivered to q third person to become effective upon the fulfilment of a condition.-is'called an “escrow.” To speak of a “male nephew would scent an unnecessary duplication of terms, hut it is not so in the eyes ot the law A bequest- to “male nephe .vs goes to the sons of a brother of the testator to the exclusion of sons of a sister. is a resounding word well suited for coyeiing. cin uninstructed adversary with confusion. It is used exclusively in -the Scottish Law Courts, for in the English Courts the same process is described by the comparatively commonplace term ot “interpleader.” is is defined as a until of process, the object of which is to have it decided, which of two or more parties called claimants is entitled to a fund, or in what proportions the fund is to be divided among several claimants. ‘.‘A BEETLE-HEADED JUSTICE”

The curious epithet “beetle-headed has been the subject, of grave legal decision, and it may carry comfort to some to know that there, is authority for saying that they may apply it to pisices of the peace with safety. it- is not a slander per se,” runs the decision “to say of a justice of the peace that he is a tool, an ass anil J a beetle-headed justice.” Indeed evil speaking of justices may go a long way. Similarly to write of a person that he is a Mail Friday” to another-is not an actionable libel, without- an innuendo imputing degradation. “Man Friday was a very respectable man although black, cominenteil the learned Judge who settled the problem. ~ f “Rack rent” has acquired a flavour ot extortion in the popular mind, possibly through association with the rack, but it onlv means rent which is equivalent or nearly equivalent in amount to the full annual value of the land. _ I he law sometimes gives a peculiar signficance to familiar verbs. Thus it speaks ot ■•dissolving” an injunction, and a covenant is in certain 1 circumstances said to “run with” the land. In the familiar declamation be it known unto all men by these presents, “presents” means words or statements. “Presents’ is also sometimes used to denote the document itselt. bailment.” according to its ordinary legal sense, relates to something .which is in the hands of a person who is to return it in specie.” P u In common speech any kind of a vu is “dead.” hut to the law a dead wall” is a wall of a very special kind. It is defined as one “without anv house or building behind it and merely intended to fence off or separate tlie road from the space of ground by the side of it and having no windows or doors. FABLE TOLD BY JUDGE In an antique volume in the Supreme Court Library, precious through its

age, there is recorded in the NormanFrench of the day a fable told to combat the principle that no man can be judge in his own case. It was-in the time Of Henry VI and the judgment of a chancellor of a university was impugned on the ground that lie had an interest in the subject matter of the litigation. Judge Rolfe broke in to tell the fable of a certain Pope to whom his prelates came saying “Thou hast sinned.” He agreed with them, called on them to judge him. “We cannot judge thee because thou art the Head of the Church. Judge thyself, they replied. The Pope consented and sentenced himself to be burned. He was burned and afterwards he was mado a saint. “And,” concluded Judge Rolfe, “there was found no inconvenience that he was judge in his own case.”