Template:Amend and supplement

“Amend” versus “supplement” versus “modify”

Is something missing from the notion “amend” that means it must be, well supplemented or even modified, to capture all lexical contortions to which a negotiating party might subject it from time to time? For example, you will often see, “this agreement, as amended, supplemented or modified (as the case may be) from time to time...”.

Is something lost if we just say “as amended”?

In this old fool’s opinion, no. To “amend” is to “change”. So is to “modify”. These words are exact synonyms. A language lover might argue that, of those three synonyms, “change” is the simplest and, therefore, best.

To “supplement” is not, quite a synonym: one might append something to the foot of an agreement that has absolutely no effect on its internal workings, the same way one might “supplement” a Morris Minor with a caravan and head off to Wales. (So loaded, your Morris Minor might struggle up the Chilterns, but it is still the same vehicle). But an agreement so “supplemented” isn’t changed, so there is no harm in neglecting to mention that kind of supplement. If your supplement does change the terms of the existing agreement then — well, it is an amendment, isn’t it? In that sense “supplement” is a synonym for “amend”.

Will this irrefutable logic now end the legal eagle’s fetish for adumbrating the different ways by which one might “alter, amend, truncate, supplement, modify, augment, diminish, expand, contract, extend, retract, deprecate, elaborate, embellish, distill or otherwise change” a legal compact?

Will it hell.