Including, but not limited to

In The Young Ones, just before The Damned kicked off a boisterous rendition of their punk classic Nasty, Mike and Vyvyan agonised over their failure to get their new video recorder working. It is a parable for today’s uncertain times.

Mike: Maybe you shouldn’t have poured all of that washing-up liquid into it.

Vyvyan: It says here, “ensure machine is clean and free from dust”.

Mike: Yeah, but it don’t say “ensure machine is full of washing-up liquid”.

Vyvyan: Well, it doesn’t say “ensure machine isn’t full of washing-up liquid”.

Mike: Well, it wouldn’t would it? I mean, it doesn’t say “ensure you don’t chop up your video machine with an axe, put all the bits in a plastic bag and bung them down the lavatory.”

Vyvyan: Doesn’t it? Well maybe that’s where we’re going wrong.

Modern lawyers expend more energy that they should addressing the contingency that not only their clients, but the courts in arbitrating upon their commercial agreements, will adopt this kind of logic. The subordinate clause beginning with “(including, but not limited to... )” speaks to this nervousness. It is parenthetical of finest flannelette. As a matter of classical logic, it is incapable of adding anything other than (without limitation) heft, weight, drama, torpor, lassitude and/or irritation (as the case may be) to your draft.

Since the parenthetical can be stretched as far as your little imaginary legs can carry you, you can add as much heft as you like, with no fear of upsetting anything or anyone other than a prose stylist — and as we all surely know, there are few indeed of those amongst the cohort of attorneys with whom one is forced to ply one’s trade.

See also

• Qix
• profound ontological uncertainty

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