Justice Scalia teaches word usage
The American Bar Association’s online ABA Journal published this English lesson November 4, 2009:
A lawyer for a company that sells tax-free cigarettes over the internet got a lesson on word usage from Justice Antonin Scalia. Lawyer Randolph Barnhouse described an opportunity to collect tax money as an inchoate interest – an interest that is not yet fully formed, the Associated Press reported.
Barnhouse argued that a city government may not bring a RICO suit to recover uncollected taxes because a lost tax opportunity is not an injury to property covered by the statute.
Barnhouse spoke of a choate interest in property – to Scalia’s dismay. “There is no such adjective,” Scalia said. “I know we have used it, but there is no such adjective as choate. There is inchoate, but the opposite of inchoate is not choate. It’s like gruntled.”
“But I think I am right on the law, Your Honor,” Barnhouse said.
“Exactly. Disgruntled,” Scalia said. “Some people mistakenly assume the opposite of disgruntled is gruntled.”
For more detail, click here.
Keywords: Writing mistakes
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