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Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

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Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

#191

Post by klabb3 »

bubblethink wrote: post #188

This gives me an idea. Like obfuscated code competitions, can we get obfuscated contract competitions where the goal is two fold. 1) Write the most difficult to parse contracts, and 2) Sneak it into actual contracts with ever increasing importance. Eventually, one of these contracts/laws would go to trial, and nobody would be able to understand it. Hilarity ensues.

Marked as duplicate. This is not only already implemented, but an alternative implementation, DOS, is available and often preferred by users. I.e. have a bill be so long that a politician can't read it all before having to vote on it.

Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

#192

Post by Panzer04 »

cwillu wrote: post #110
chx wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This here reminds me of George Carlin: > People add extra words when they want things to sound more important than they really are. "Boarding process". Sounds important. It isn't. It's just a bunch of people getting on an airplane. People like to sound important. Weathermen on Television talk about shower activity. Sounds more important than showers. I even heard one guy on CNN talk about a rain event. I swear to God…

My personal peave is “utilize”: it's just an excuse to use the letter “z” in a sentence.

If you're American, anyway :). Though default autocorrects are trying to globalise the Z over S anyway :(.

Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

#193

Post by klabb3 »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #176
dctoedt wrote: post #50

Lawyer and contract-drafting teacher here. The biggest problem with unreadable contracts is that we have too many L.O.A.D.s: Lazy Or Arrogant Drafters. (You can decide for yourself: L.O.A.D. of what?) There's a relevant Dilbert cartoon: [0] To simplify contract language, the biggest bang for the buck comes from SSSP: Short, Single-Subject Paragraphs, which are much easier to read; to review and revise during contract…

To extend this L.O.A.D. point, the worst, most unreadable contracts are drafted by nonlawyer paraprofessionals deputized by their organizations to patchwork previous contracts that may have been somewhat readable, into a Frankenstein mess. It's somewhat akin to assigning the office manager to write software code. Businesses do it because they think contracts should be simple so anyone can write them adequately. Those…

> Businesses do it because they think contracts should be simple so anyone can write them adequately. Those organizations are half right.

I can empathize with writing contracts being hard. However, reading them should be easy. Ironically, writing something that is easy to read is hard.

If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter

Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

#194

Post by leaflets2 »

AlbertCory wrote: post #183
watwut wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have long readable phrases. The long phrase is bad rule is just beginner helper, nothing more nothing less.

Wrong. A long phrase requires the user to keep the entire meaning in their head until the end. Can you show us some "long readable phrases"?

> A long phrase requires the user to keep the entire meaning in their head

You could say that about books as well? I mean, if you forget what it is about when you're about to read the end ...

Eumerations can be long and still easy to read especially if using 1) ... 2) ... style. And ; clauses too like the sibling comment says

Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

#197

Post by jononomo »

Panzer04 wrote: post #192
cwillu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal peave is “utilize”: it's just an excuse to use the letter “z” in a sentence.

If you're American, anyway :). Though default autocorrects are trying to globalise the Z over S anyway :(.

You could also just say "use"

Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

#198

Post by dctoedt »

rayiner wrote: post #184
tunesmith wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't researched it heavily, but wasn't that also true for the 2nd amendment? I doubt all the folks that ratified it agreed on its meaning.

That’s true in general. There was a lot of disagreement over the scope of things like the Commerce Clause, Necessary and Proper Clause, etc. I don’t think that’s true of the Second Amendment specifically. It was written by a bunch of men who had just used guns they had lying around their farms to form militias and overthrow their government. I don’t think it’s a great mystery what they meant when they wrote the Secon…

> a bunch of men who had just used guns they had lying around their farms to form militias and overthrow their government.

That pretty seriously overstates the case: The American Revolution started out that way, but as time went on, the Continental Army acquired serious artillery and became reasonably professional — thanks largely to Henry Knox; Baron von Steuben; and the Marquis de La Fayette — and the decisive factor at Yorktown was the intervention of a French naval squadron and expeditionary force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Army

https://www.historynet.com/arming-revolution-continental-arm...

Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

#199

Post by chinabot »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

For everyone commenting "laypeople aren't the intended audience", this monstrosity was a recent Texas constitutional ballot proposal, i.e. all voters in the state were asked to vote on it: > The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school pu…

Should have a third-option for "Not understood" and if more than 20% tick it then it gets dropped.

Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

#200

Post by [deleted] »

chinabot wrote: post #199
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

For everyone commenting "laypeople aren't the intended audience", this monstrosity was a recent Texas constitutional ballot proposal, i.e. all voters in the state were asked to vote on it: > The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school pu…

Should have a third-option for "Not understood" and if more than 20% tick it then it gets dropped.

[deleted]
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