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
#2This is absolutely the same with science.
Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language
#3Why can't they just use normal English language for contracts? How did it get to be this way?
Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language
#4Why can't they just use normal English language for contracts? How did it get to be this way?
For the same reason why programmers can't just use normal English when talking about software.
Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language
#5Why can't they just use normal English language for contracts? How did it get to be this way?
Normal English evolves. Contracts rely on precise, shared understanding, and so it builds up its own jargon and shibboleths to represent concepts that everyone can have a singular understanding of. You don't want there to be any ambiguity in your contract, or any chance that courtroom precedents may not apply because your language differed from the 'norm'.
Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language
#6Why can't they just use normal English language for contracts? How did it get to be this way?
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Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language
#7Why can't they just use normal English language for contracts? How did it get to be this way?
For the same reason why programmers can't just use normal English when talking about software.
So because the computer doesn't understand English, or because the terminology is often new and constantly changing?
Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language
#8This is the same in any advanced academic field. Ever tried talking to a sociologist or a philosopher?
Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language
#9Why can't they just use normal English language for contracts? How did it get to be this way?
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Or more generally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
English is so incredibly context sensitive at every level from word construction to paragraphs that words/sentences/paragraphs are meaningless on their own.
You'd need a meta language to describe what the contracts mean. Which is what legal language is trying to be. If software engineers were building it today they'd probably add type judgments to each word/sentence/paragraph to enforce the right interpretation, e.g.
(: ((: (time flies) noun)
(: like proposition)
(: (an arrow) noun))
sentence)
Re: Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language
#10Why can't they just use normal English language for contracts? How did it get to be this way?
Normal English evolves. Contracts rely on precise, shared understanding, and so it builds up its own jargon and shibboleths to represent concepts that everyone can have a singular understanding of. You don't want there to be any ambiguity in your contract, or any chance that courtroom precedents may not apply because your language differed from the 'norm'.
By your explanation, the language is broken by design. It cannot simultaneously not change while also develop shibboleths.