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#90697 01/02/03 05:18 PM
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Dear wofaholicodoc: A splendid link. Wish I had been clever enough to find it. Bill


#90698 01/02/03 10:08 PM
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Faldo, you are quite right in that aboleo, evi, itum means, among other things, "to abolish", and is the root of the English word. However, abolesco, while it may have a common root within Latin, has a much different meaning in Latin. While I haven't had time to look for definitive sources, its dictionary definition, and the context in which I've seen it used, means "to die" as in "to perish, to be extinguished, to fade away". Aboleo means "to do away with, to abolish". Not really the same thing at all, old chum!

I was actually seriously trying to come up with a word to describe the experience that whichever of our doctors who kicked this thread off was talking about. Morior doesn't get it. Obolesco seems to have the implied meaning of "I'm dying/fading away and I know it and am contemplating my end" rather than the blunter and more active "I know I will die now, probably because the emperor is about to give me the thumbs down" which morior implies.

Fuckit is, and remains, self-explanatory, if not Latin!

And "chopped liver" is jecur abscidat - "the liver is chopped". Couldn't find an adjectival form, unfortunately. Shame the Romans didn't ask the US for advice on permissible colloquialisms!


- Pfranz

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I asked my yet-to-be-barred lawyer friend who has an eidetic memory if there was a latinate legalism that conveyed the sense of "you take the victim as you find him". He said "No!".

In court he said he would argue by citing a "you take the victim as you find him" precedent.

So let's not aide and abet these obfuscating ambulance chasers who will latinate at the drop of the latin word for hat, by a search for substitute latin phrasing, even though the plain speaking term "thin skull" sounds stupid and silly and dumb.





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Milum:

I am certain that very few Latin phrases are being taught in law school now, but you will find that there are literally tens of thousands of Latin phrases in an older edition of a good law dictionary. When the question came up I was sure in my mind that there is such a phrase; finding it is something else.

Essentially these are catchphrases for important points of law that have been well settled or are names of particular writs that were at one time important in law. An example of the former is the point in law that prior court decisions are to be given great deference in applying law to a current case. Rather than saying all that, an attorney needed to merely say "the doctrine of stare decisis (STAR-aye duh-See-sis), which means literally to let the decision stand.

A few things like that are still in use, like writ of habeus corpus and a plea of nolo contendere, but the rest are pretty much as dead as Latin. Still standing though are most of the legal principles behind them.

TEd



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#90701 01/03/03 11:28 AM
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TEd,

Of course I agree that the use of latin in law and science serves to condense and exact compound ideas, but Like all words, specialized jargon has multi-functions. Do you believe that there exists in "law" a concept that could not be understood, given time, by the average american? Of course you don't. Do you believe that a profession that is dependent on the ignorance of their clients for the continuation of their over-sized group has a vested interest in making their actions and wordings clear to all? Of course you don't.

But then you do believe that all state and federal laws that were made in the second half of the Twentieth Century in the States were made by lawyers. Don't you.

We are not a smart people. We trust lawyers. Lawyers don't.

Milum.


#90702 01/03/03 06:19 PM
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Well I emailed my question to the medical examiner who I thought had originally taught me the phrase. He was stumped and could only offer "eggshell defense," so I must've been entirely mistaken. There is no Latin legal phrase then as far as I know for "You take the victim as you find her."
Mea culpa.



#90703 01/03/03 08:40 PM
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So ... ipso facto - sic!

- Pfranz

#90704 01/04/03 02:51 AM
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There is no Latin legal phrase then as far as I know for "You take the victim as you find her."
I think you are right, AW. But the flip side of your maxim, i.e. - the one which holds that anyone who consents to the risk of injury, for example, a participant in a contact sport, like hockey, forfeits the right to sue for an injury while engaged in that consensual activity, is so widely recognized in legal circles that it can be communicated in a single word: volens.

Sagacity of such exemplary brevity gives us reason not merely to defend, but to celebrate, latin maxims in legal education today.

Latin maxims allow us to say more with less - and who can argue that that is not a good thing? Res ipsa loquitur.

"Volenti non fit injuria" is itself an elegant adumbration of a legal principle so soundly stated twenty-five hundred years ago that it is not improved by translation into any other language, even english, today.

"Volenti non fit injuria" is succinct. But, volens is encyclopedic in its brevity. Where can you find such eloquence elsewhere, in any language, in a single 5 letter word? QED


#90705 01/04/03 11:08 AM
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volens: a forfeit of the right to sue if one willingly chooses to engage in a dangerous activity that leads to injury relative to that danger.

Sagacity of such exemplary brevity gives us reason not merely to defend, but to celebrate, latin maxims in legal education today . ~ Plutarch

Now Plutarch we do want to be clear. Before we celebrate let's admit that the term was not a "latin" maxim as you imply. The word was imbued with this meaning from a narrower latin base by legal educators who needed a brief term that had class and weight. Me? I think the derived and contrived meaning is great! But I bet you can't say it without puffing out your chest.


#90706 01/04/03 02:44 PM
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At what point does the concept of volens become superceded by clearly criminal activity on a playing field? For example, if someone is shot with pistol on a basketball court, that is wildly beyond the limits of volens. But often violence breaks out in sporting events and there seems to be little legal consequence, such as when Dennis Rodman attacked an NBA referee. If I had been in the ref's position I would definitely have pressed charges for assault, but as far as I know all he [Rodman] suffered was a fine from the league.


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