March 13, 2015

A delightful payoff for research prompted by random curiosity about language.

Sasha Volokh is bemused by the phrase "still and all" in Supreme Court cases.

It sounds slang-y because "and all" occurs in casual speech (like "and stuff"), but it's actually old-timey (like "It cannot be gainsaid").

Sasha consults the OED and finds the the phrase goes back to 1829. And he searches the entire Supreme Court archive to find that there is — after 2 recent iterations of the phrase "still and all" — only one other appearance of those 3 words in sequence, a 1961 case about the search of a distillery:
Indeed, the officers here could have abated the nuisance without judicial help by destroying the still and all of its paraphernalia....

10 comments:

David said...

Doing the jobs native born Americans don't want to do.

Wilbur said...

Justice Whitaker finally gets his day in the sun.

rhhardin said...

Speaking of what's wrong with SCOTUS and administrative law, Epstein at his best going back to first principles on that here a couple of days ago.

There are principles that make sense that judges are oblivious of.

Archilochus said...

I would like to use "gainsaid" more frequently in writing and conversation, but isn't the phrase "cannot be gainsaid" a double negative?

Wilbur said...

Although Justice Whitaker did give us the classic Hanson v. Denckla.

Archilochus said...

I should say, it feels like a double negative to me.

Jason said...

To Justice and all!

Simon said...

I'm bemused that Ed Whelan is so ridiculous when it comes to judicial prose. Can it really be that he is either (1) such a glutton for punishment that he actually objects to good writing, or (2) such a hack that he's willing to pretend because it's Elena Kagan? Jesus Christ, Ed. Ever hear of Frank Easterbrook? Alex Kozinski? Most of us thought that they are shining examples of a certain style of judicial writing, one that is at very least commendable to those who can pull it off.

jimbino said...

Time and again, folks use ancient grammatical constructions that seem to make no sense.

khematite@aol.com said...

And then there's the godawful phrase that seems to be used mainly by people under forty-- "even still."