the (new) legal writer

Who else’s vocabulary includes “ossature”?

West’s headnote of the day:

Even during appellate review of a dismissal for failure to state a claim, which takes place under a set of plaintiff-friendly guidelines, the reviewing court cannot be expected to do counsel's work, create the ossature for the argument, and put flesh on its bones.
Redondo-Borges v. U.S. Dept. of Hous. & Urban Dev., 421 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2005).

Without looking up the case, I’m guessing it’s written by Judge Selya. Ossature is a dead giveaway.

Font cats

Twenty fonts and (we’re told) the cats who inspired them. Since I live with four cats, I’m obligated to link to this. Also we have a Persian that’s a dead ringer for # 6, except ours has two eyes (see photo at left). (Hat tip to Peter Athas.)

Mangled metaphors, sick similes

Take a break from that bad legal writing you’re duty-bound to read. Take a look at this year’s Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winners. And the next time you write a horrible figure of speech, make sure it’s on purpose. (Hat tip to John McIntyre.)

Swear words

In the absence of anything educational or uplifting, here are two videos on courtroom oaths. First, courtesy of Improbable Research, is an English translation of the oath taken in Burma.

 

Compared with that, Curly had it easy.

T(N)LW scoops the ABA Journal by 4½ years

A few days ago, the ABA reported on an L.A. Times story, which in turn reported on law-review article showing that the most-often quoted songwriter in judicial opinions is Bob Dylan.

Must have been a slow-news day in L.A. and at the ABA. Some law blogs (including this one) covered the same story back in September 2006.

Let it snow. Not.

Words are like snow—something to remember the next time you’re tempted to unleash a blizzard of words.

Brainless writing

Says here that “[t]here’s a new advance in the effort to write prose without any direct involvement of a human brain.” As a reader of legal writing since 1986, I’d say the legal profession is way ahead of that curve.

Today’s most entertaining legal-writing blog post ...

... comes courtesy of our friends at What About Clients/Paris?

ESL students learn how to swear

For some reason, this English-as-a-second-language class reminds me of the opening bit from the movie Stripes. Warning: not safe for work. (Hat tip to Johnson.)

Speaking of the opening bit from Stripes:

Never mind LeBron. Here’s the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Winners

If one of your secret pleasures is intentionally godawful prose, then you’ll want to peruse this year’s Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Winners. The contest is named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose inspired Snoopy with his famous opening, “It was a dark and stormy night....” My favorite is by Dennis Doberneck, runner-up in the Purple Prose category:

The wind whispering through the pine trees and the sun reflecting off the surface of Lake Tahoe like a scattering of diamonds was an idyllic setting, while to the south the same sun struggled to penetrate a sky choked with farm dust and car exhaust over Bakersfield, a town spread over the lower San Joaquin Valley like a brown stain on a wino’s trousers, which is where, unfortunately, this story takes place.