Importance Of Using Good Grammar

Importance Of Using Good Grammar

Good grammar and punctuation are tools for reducing ambiguity in our documents. When a statement can be taken two ways, even if one of the ways is totally ridiculous, then someone, somewhere, will not understand what we mean. Miscommunication sometimes leads to controversies that must be decided by a judge. With no controversy over a particular word or phrase in a document, contract, affidavit, or court pleading, then the judge cannot be called upon to make any decisions regarding that document, only the performance under the document.

This essay is not intended to be a full-length treatise on either formatting of legal documents, nor the complete directions on how to write the English language. The purpose of this document is to assist in formulating the mind-set for preparing easily read and understood documents that will increase your chances of getting a case before a jury, and winning the approval of the jury.

One of the first things that we must do [in legal documents, not here] is eliminate all pronouns. Pronouns are substitutes for nouns, and are not specific. The general rule is, Never use a pronoun where the noun will do. I know that when you have just used the mans name, and then use the pronoun he, then it is obvious to most people that the he would refer to the man. However, when any pronoun other than first-person-singular is used, then the judge can use judicial discretion and decide the name of the man or woman that is referenced by the pronoun. Sometimes the judge might possibly decide that the he that must be paid a certain sum of FeRNs, is the judge, himself!!!!!

This brings up one of the rules that I was given, years ago, regarding how a judge looks at and interprets a document. They do NOT look at a document and see if it is enforceable. They do NOT look at a provision or paragraph and see if the paragraph is enforceable. What they do, is meticulously examine each sentence and phrase, and see if this individual sentence or phrase, standing alone, is or is not enforceable. Then they will use their mental magic marker and remove every sentence that is not completely enforceable. After all of the ambiguous or unenforceable sentences are removed, the judge then looks at the document, and tries to make sense out of it. When half of the sentences are removed because they are not enforceable or because they are ambiguous, is it any wonder that judges have such a field day with the standard Patriot documents? The public schools did not teach to think logically, so how can we write coherently? This is why it is so often reported that judges or lawyers will blurt out This document is gibberish!

Some words that I avoid in legal documents are:

If

Since

From

To

If is a conditional word that denotes uncertainty. Usually, the positive, certain word that works better in that case is when. I paid a lawyer some hard cash to learn this fact. Dont make the mistake of using the word if, unless you really are unsure of yourself.

Since can mean either after or because. Why not just use those words in the first place? Can you understand how using this word can cause confusion?

From is the past tense preposition. To is the future tense preposition. All other prepositions are present tense. When these prepositions are mixed into a sentence with present tense prepositions, the sentence becomes confused between past, present, and future, and therefore internally inconsistent. This means that the judge has the option of throwing that sentence out.

Legal documents should present nothing but the facts, and emotional language should be used very sparingly. Im reminded of a story that was told to me during the time that I was doing some amateur acting with a small theater group. The way the story was told to me, there was a script that called for a very emotional lady, who cried a lot. The theater director found the right actress for the part, and she practiced shedding her tears for several months during rehearsals. At the dress rehearsal the actress did her usual handkerchief-soaking best, and she got rave reviews by all of the theater critics. However, before the show went on, on opening night, the director pulled the leading lady aside and gave her some serious instruction. He said, I want you to go out there tonight and do everything that you have done for the past several months, every voice inflection, every gasp, every tremor in your voice, but I dont want to see a single tear in either of your eyes. The lady followed her directors orders, and at the end of the play, hers were the ONLY dry eyes in the house. The point is, we cannot get very far with convincing a jury to give us an award when all we do is convince them that WE are deeply offended by the actions of the one who damaged us. We can get a LOT of compassion from a jury when we present the FACTS in such a way that the FACTS convince the jury that the jury, itself, is the only force on earth that can make the wrongs be righted, and that to protect themselves and their loved ones, they MUST act in our favor.

Any prejudicial statements must be avoided. What is a prejudicial statement? In this case, a prejudicial statement is anything that depends on subjective interpretation. Adverbs are virtually all prejudicial. Almost all words ending in ly are adverbs, and should be either eliminated, or used very sparingly. We want to convince with facts that can be reasonably articulated, and laws and case cites that are easy to understand. Then, in our closing statements, we can remember the instructions to the Leading Lady, and try to formulate statements that will linger in the minds of the jurors while they are in deliberations, and cause them to become upset at the clear violations of your rights that have caused you to have to litigate to protect yourself. When you do your job well, it will be obvious to you that big displays of anger at the arresting officer on your part will not make a jury as sympathetic as simply reading the laws, oaths, and standards of conduct for police officers, and then showing them the evidence, through documents and witnesses, that the officers willfully and wantonly disregarded their public duty.

I have found that by following simple rules of grammar that were taught in grade school, along with the above guidelines, I am writing a lot better documents than I used to write.

As an exercise, go back over this article, substituting better words for the four in the above list, and see how much better the article is. Remove the pronouns it, we, he, they, this, etc., and substitute logical nouns. Next, try substituting some ridiculous nouns like Mormon Tabernacle Choir for we or San Jose Middle-School metal working class for the word they. You will begin to see why grammar is important, and why most judges dont feel threatened by the usual quality of Patriot paperwork.

As a more relevant exercise, take any book on expatriation or tax strategy, and apply the above principles to the sentence structure and word selection, and see how much you can improve the original work. PLEASE, even do this with the documents in Strategic Withdrawal!!! My work is the best there is, right now, because I am willing to admit that it can be improved. The people who stimulate the improvement are the users.

The last major change that I have made in legal documents is that I no longer use acronyms, contractions, or abbreviations. Sometimes, contractions can be ambiguous, and even if there is no potential for confusion, they make a document shorter. It takes no longer to type do not than it takes to type dont, so I let the words fill up the page on the legal documents. It costs us no great amount of time to write Internal Revenue Service, especially when we can type the whole phrase by copying the name to the clipboard, then holding + . This also assures us that there will be no spelling errors. Acronyms can be especially confusing and ambiguous. As an example, suppose you used a phrase with the acronym BATF and the reader thought that you were talking about agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, but what you really meant was that these agents had a Bad Attitude Toward Freedom? See how confusing it can be?

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