A tort is defined in MW as:
": a wrongful act other than a breach of contract for which relief may be obtained in the form of damages or an injunction "
Other than a breach of contract? Torts are wrongful acts?
So what exactly is a tort and what exactly isn't it?
Any breach of any kind of contract isn't a tort?
And any wrongful act is a tort?
I admit I'm in the dark over the meaning of the word tort.
Hoping for a bit of light shed here,
WW
Dear WW: Here is a good URL about torts. I tried to make a llist of examples, but it got too long.
http://www.rbs2.com/torts.htm
Thanks, wwh. The site provided the kind of explanation I was looking for, and dictionaries did not prove to be helpful at all.
Best regards,
WW
Thanks Wordwind for the question.
Thanks wwh for the URL.
Silly me, I thought that "tort reform" meant that the incident of crooked lawyers who bleed the ignorant poor and rich of our society through the fixation and the resultant instigation of self-serving laws enacted by our government of lawyers, would, in the interest of the common good, cause these defenders of the common good to reform themselves.
Maybe, just maybe, I overestimated our bright and dear defenders of the truth, and their allegiance to their sacred oath to sacrifice for the common good...
The explanation of why torts don't apply to contracts goes back to the days when there were more distinct divisions of the judicial system with different courts and procedures than is now the case. Today civil law and criminal law are still distinct divisions, but formerly there was a division between courts of law and courts of equity. A tort may be defined as a wrongful act which is not a violation of the criminal code (if it were, it would be dealt with in the criminal court system) nor an act having to do with performance or non-performance under a contract (in which case it would be a matter of contract law). I believe that in the olden days torts were decided in courts of equity, contracts in courts of law.
Do you feel that in tort there is the same root that in torsion?
In Italian torto comes from torcere , and means twisted. So "torto" is something twisted from the right way.
Brava, Emanuela. AHD says from the Latin torquere, to twist. Obviously the same source as the Italian, torcere
Yep, can't think of a better retort than that ... SHADDAP, shona!
the same root word also gives english torture and torment.. and seems to go back to the greek, atraktos, a spindle
In French, if one wants to say that he or she is wrong, he or she says: j'ai tort.
Looking up the word by itself in my French/English dictionnary it gives the English definition as: fault; wrong.
This could be the origin of the word.
Dear apples + oranges: Je crois que vous avez raison. Merci.
A river that twists and turns (and an aorta, too) is "tortuous."
As are some judicial arguments with hard-to-follow reasoning processes.
And for those for whom "tortuous" doesn't sound painful enough, on the Internet
you can find problems described as "torturous".
So, Faldage...
How would you distinguish between "tortuous reasoning" and "torturous reasoning"?
Seriously.
WW
Dear WW: as unauthorized mouthpiece for Faldage, torturous reasoning involves a hotfoot
to help you think.
can't think of a better retort
Don't mind me, Cap - your retort stands.
retort
n.
Fr retorte < ML retorta < L, fem. of retortus: see prec.6
1 a container, generally of glass and with a long tube, in which substances are distilled, as in a laboratory
2 a vessel in which ore is heated to extract a metal, coal is heated to produce gas, etc.
Dear fishonabike: build a fire under his retort.
I suppose, to answer my own question, a tortuous explanation that gives you great pain would be a torturous one.
Re Apples + Oranges: Moi aussi.
Strangely, A + O seems to have disappeared. I clicked on the name to ascertain male or female and found a notice the name is no longer in the database.
the name is no longer in the database.
We've been through this before. The poor handler (remember, this is Ænigma's little sister) can't handle a name with a plus sign in it.