Plain English for Lawyers
Plain English for Lawyers
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律师的简单英语
DOI：
10.2307/3479966
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发表时间：
1979
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Richard C. Wydick
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Richard C. Wydick
我们律师不能写通俗易懂的英语。我们用八个词来表达两个词就能表达的东西。我们用古老而晦涩的短语来表达老生常谈的想法。为了追求精确，我们变得多余。为了谨慎，我们变得啰嗦。我们的句子扭曲着，一个句子接一个句子，使读者的眼睛呆滞，头脑麻木。根据一位评论家的说法，其结果是形成了一种具有四个突出特征的写作风格。它是：“(1)冗长，(2)不清楚，(3)浮夸，(4)沉闷。”对律师写作的批评并不是什么新鲜事。1596年，一位英国大法官决定将一份特别冗长的文件杀一儆百。默克尔首先下令在文件的中心开一个洞，文件共有120页。然后，他下令把写这封信的人的脑袋塞进洞里，并把这个倒霉的家伙带到威斯敏斯特大厅，向所有出席法庭的人展示。当普通法移植到美国时，古老的英国律师的写作风格也随之而来。1817年，托马斯·杰斐逊（Thomas Jefferson）哀叹，在起草法律时，他的律师同行们习惯于“把每一个词都变成‘说过’或‘前述’，每件事都重复两三遍，以至于除了我们这一行的人之外，没有人能理解这些措辞，并找出它的含义. .. .”
We lawyers cannot write plain English. We use eight words to say what could be said in two. We use old, arcane phrases to express commonplace ideas. Seeking to be precise, we become redundant. Seeking to be cautious, we become verbose. Our sentences twist on, phrase within clause within clause, glazing the eyes and numbing the minds of our readers. The result is a writing style that has, according to one critic, four outstanding characteristics. It is: "(1) wordy, (2) unclear, (3) pompous, and (4) dull."' Criticism of lawyers' writing is nothing new. In 1596 an English chancellor decided to make an example of a particularly prolix document filed in his court. The chancellor first ordered a hole cut through the center of the document, all 120 pages of it. Then he ordered that the person who wrote it should have his head stuffed through the hole, and the unfortunate fellow was led around to be exhibited to all those attending court at Westminster Hall.2 When the common law was transplanted to America, the writing style of the old English lawyers came with it. In 1817 Thomas Jefferson lamented that in drafting statutes his fellow lawyers were accustomed to "making every other word a 'said' or 'aforesaid,' and saying everything over two or three times, so that nobody but we of the craft can untwist the diction, and find out what it means. .. ."3