“Watch Your Language”

Okay, it’s true. When it comes to language, I’m a bit cranky. All right, all right. I admit it. I’m more than a crank. I’m an absolute curmudgeon. ‘enry ‘iggins had nothing on me. I have enough pet peeves to fill a kennel. And I never hesitate to point them out.

I abhor run-on sentences, which, these days, don’t just run but gallop endlessly across the pages of our most respected media. Split infinitives drive me to drink; but alas, they too are now mainstream. And those participles! They dangle more precariously than the protagonists in a Hitchcock thriller. “As one of my most loyal supporters, I want to thank you for your help in the campaign.” PUHLEEZ! If you are one of your own most loyal supporters, you’re more narcissistic than Trump.

I cringe when people obviously think they are exercising extreme care to differentiate between “I” and “me”, but get it wrong every time. “A summer associate came to court with Jack and I.” Ugh. They would never say “with I and Jack.” Don’t they understand that the object of a preposition remains such even if its location is shifted by a conjunction? Evidently not.

Those who use “I” where it doesn’t belong often fail to use it where it does belong. I refer to the distasteful tendency to transform the nominative into the reflexive, as in “Q: Who attended the board meeting? A: Barbara and myself.” Double ugh. The same foolishness often occurs when the objective first person pronoun is called for.¹ “He asked Sarah and myself to edit the brief.”²

And it seems that only a tiny portion of English-speakers (or at least American-speakers) know the difference between “lie” (to recline) and “lay” (to place). Therefore, we get the following embarrassment: “I’m so tired, I’m going to lay in bed.” Please don’t; there are children present.³

You would think that even those who don’t know the difference between a gerund and a gerbil would be able to distinguish between nouns and verbs. No such luck. Consider this monstrosity: “We have employed two new hires in the Litigation Department, and we have tasked them with an assignment on our most important case.” FUGGEDABOUTIT. We don’t employ new hires; we hire new employees. And when they are on the job, we don’t task them with an assignment; we assign them a task.

Then there are the verbal ticks, including the Valley Girl standbys – “like”, “actually”, “you know”, “I mean”; the combined form: “you know what I mean”; “right”; and “sort of”. (For some reason, the latter two are favored by the English, who should know better. After all, they invented the language.) Now there is a new one: the use of “so” at the beginning of a sentence, where it serves no purpose other than to delay. National Public Radio, usually the most erudite of our media, is home to the most frequent so-sayers. “Q: So, where did you go to law school? A: So, I went to Georgetown.” Oy.

I won’t even discuss the debasement of our discourse by the constant use of foul language, especially certain off-color Anglo Saxon verbs. Cole Porter famously wrote: “Good authors too who once knew better words/now only use four-letter words/writing prose./Anything goes.” And that was decades before the advent of cable TV.⁴

To recycle Lenin’s famous question: “What is to be done?”

I leave that to you, Dear Reader. Education is the presumptive answer, but can our educational system accomplish anything these days? Suggestions are welcome.

Now that I’ve established my linguistic bona fides, and my cantankerous personality, let me move from “do’s” and “don’ts” to my personal likes and dislikes. Here are a few. (You’ll notice the list contains no likes – only dislikes).

“Attorney-Client privilege.” This evidentiary rule is beloved by my colleagues, but our profession is notorious for its terrible public relations. Hence, we constantly invoke a phrase that immediately generates resistance from the public and prompts this question: “Why should lawyers and their clients have privileges?”

Of course, those of us who understand legal jargon know that the term “privilege”, as so used, is rooted in the common law of evidence, and does not mean the same thing as the term “privilege” when used in common parlance. Those relying on this rule have a relationship that, the law recognizes, entitles them to privacy when communicating with one another. “Privacy” is good; “privilege” is bad. Accordingly, we should forget about “privilege” and give this evidentiary rule a new name that describes the worthy purpose it serves: “attorney-client privacy”. Problem solved.

“Thank you for taking the time.” I hate clichés, and this is the cliché du jour. It is usually addressed to a lecturer who has just completed his remarks (“Thank you for taking the time to speak to us”); an expert who has provided advice (“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us”); a media interview guest (“Thank you for taking the time to come on our program”); or the like. It reflects the total lack of imagination of the person uttering it, who cannot find an intelligent rejoinder to what has just been imparted. When I hear this banality addressed to someone else, I cringe. When I’m the one on the receiving end, I find it more than slightly insulting. “My time? That’s it? That’s all the thanks I get? Anybody can provide time. What about the quality of my speech, or the value of my advice, or the insights in my answers to your questions? Can you not at least thank me for the substance that I provided?” Of course, not even I am churlish enough to say that, so I grin and bear it; and the opportunity for a true dialogue passes. Pity.

“Without further ado.” This is the companion cliché too frequently uttered by those introducing a guest speaker – the same people who generally become time-thankers when the speaker finishes. It usually follows an uninspired recital of the guest speaker’s bio. It reduces those accomplishments to an undistinguished “ado”.

If I ever heard the phrase uttered after an entertaining introduction, I would shout out “No! No! I want more ado. Give us further ado.” But that has never happened, and I doubt it ever will.

“That’s a great question.” Too great, usually. When I hear this response after a pointed query is put to a politician, expert, adversary, or witness, I know we’re not going to get a straight answer. This technique is generally used to disarm and deflect the questioner while giving the respondent time to change the subject. It is a particular favorite of evasive interview guests on Sunday morning talk shows, and it usually works.

“Volunteers.” The American Bar Association, in which I’m proud to play a prominent role, is the leading professional society for lawyers. For reasons I have never understood, those who hold the top positions in our organization – including the officers, committee and section chairs, Board members, and the like – are called (and even call themselves) “volunteers.” Why? A volunteer is the family member who comes forward to wash the dishes after Thanksgiving dinner. A nice gesture, but not much substantive content. I and many others like me provide ideas, substance, guidance, energy, and – yes – time to move this great Association forward at the highest level. Don’t trivialize that effort by calling us “volunteers”. Call us what we are: “leaders.”

Icons. In ancient times, there was no written language. People used stick figures and other primitive drawings to record their words and thoughts. These gradually became standardized and evolved into hieroglyphics and the equivalent. From there, humans developed alphabets, and, ultimately, written languages of great sophistication.

For unexplained reasons, however, we are now bringing back picture language. The biggest promoter of this anti-alphabet trend is the internet, where icons and emojis are ubiquitous. But even offline, icons are frequently used instead of written words to convey important messages, including some that are urgent. I refer, for example, to the little green man and the red hand that have replaced “go” and “stop” on our traffic signals; the mystifying wavy lines that purport to tell us how to activate air conditioning and defrosting in our cars; the large exclamation points that convey something important (but what?) about road repairs.

The icons that really make me crazy appear inside elevators with automatic doors. Their purpose is to tell us how to close the door that remains open too long, and – more important – how to open the door that is starting to close on some poor soul who is desperate to enter. You know what I mean. They look like this: “►◄” and “◄►”.

My problem is that, in the split seconds in which I must act to prevent the doors from crushing the aforementioned soul, I cannot remember which is which. Either I press the close button when I intend to keep the doors open, thereby risking someone’s life and limb; or I stand there frozen while the doors slam in his face. To the onlooker and the poor soul, it appears that I am either a sadist or an idiot.

I therefore make this plea to the world’s elevator manufacturers, engineers, architects, and landlords: Double PUHLEEZ, use words – “open” and “close” will do – not schematics on these emergency buttons.

Acronyms. Some entities are so prominent that they don’t have to use their names; they are instantly recognizable by their initials. I refer to such iconic institutions as IBM, the NFL, the USA, and, of course, the ABA.

But then there are the wannabes – entities that are (deservedly) obscure but nevertheless pretentiously tout their initials as if they need no further identification. Trust me, they do. I won’t name them, but they know who they are, or at least they should.

Even sillier is the practice of speaking an entity’s initials as if they formed a real word. Sometimes they do, but only because the entity’s name has been contorted to extremes for the sole purpose of producing a snappy acronym. More often, the spoken acronym has no real-word analog and comes across as complete gibberish. I recently heard a distinguished bar leader mention “the importance of [what sounded like] KLEE.” I know of the great Swiss painter Paul Klee, but I couldn’t imagine what he had to do with the legal profession. Turned out to be a reference to CLE (Continuing Legal Education), whose actual name is almost never used anymore, and, therefore, whose purpose has now become totally obscure.⁵

In this environment there looms a particularly troubling (to me) trend. My cherished home bar is the storied New York State Bar Association, whose leadership of our profession dates back to the 19th century. Some of my dear colleagues have now abandoned this renowned name and started calling it by the meaningless acronym “Nyesbah”. Triple Oy. Please don’t.

In sum, as the title to this article cautions, watch your language. But another warning should also be heeded: watch the absence of language.