the (new) legal writer

“Even if it’s bold italic ...”

And now, for something completely different—some guys who take their fonts a little too seriously. (Hat tip to First Draft.)

Drunk and Tight

I often blog with a tumbler of Dewar’s nearby. So I should pay particular attention to John McIntyre’s A Sot’s Guide to the Elements of Style.

Graffiti

Mark Liberman at Language Log spotted this gem. It’s from The Rut, where you’ll find many more wonderful cartoons.

We can only wonder what he says to hecklers

If you hate Van Morrison or like diagramming sentences, then you’ll love this Language Log post, parsing something he  said to a fan. The fan said something like, “We love you, Van.” Morrison’s reply (parsed by our Language Log friends): “Fucking shut the fuck up.”

More clichés than the law allows

So these 26th Century archaeologists unearthed some 500-year-old C-Span videos, listened to the debates, took them literally, and used them as the basis for reconstructing the U.S. Capitol. If you’d like to take the tour, William Ecenbarger will be your guide.

It was a hot summer night ...

They call people like me “tall building lawyers,” not because I’m especially tall, but because the building I work in has 50 floors,¹ which makes me think I should have put a hyphen between “tall” and “building.” In any event, high above the sweltering streets of New Orleans, where two-inch-long cockroaches regularly violate the laws of aerodynamics by actually flying, and where the natives know that anyone wearing Mardi Gras beads during Lent is a tourist, I sit in my four-walled chamber, where the HVAC keeps things as cool as a meat locker in Greenland. On my computer screen appears a post by Coleen Barger on Legal Writing Prof Blog, who scooped me on this story like I was a tub of Rocky Road at Baskin-Robbins. The 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction awards had been doled out, and Coleen beat me to the punch, like Sugar Ray Leonard sparring with Helen Keller.

__________

¹ I remember the time this hot number asked me how many stories were in my building, and I said, “Babe, it’s got 50 floors and a million stories.”

Grammar Nazis

When you’re a grammar Nazi, you’d better not mix up your and you’re; otherwise something like this may happen. (Hat tip trail: GrammarBlog, via You Don’t Say.)

Put some rapping in your brief / And from the judgment get relief

A pro-se litigant appealing an attorney-fee award submitted a reply brief “utilizing rap/rhyme in the argument topics to better emphasize strong concept points.” It worked. According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the appellate court reversed the attorney-fee award. To read the rhyming reply, click here. (Hat tip to Howard Bashman.)

Not in your Bluebook or ALWD

How do you cite restroom graffiti? Or a tattoo? Here’s how. (Hat tip: Southern Appeal.)

Rap duel translated into legal language

Courtesy of Feddie, here is a rap duel translated into Legal English.