Calculated

“calculated” is a flannelish word which, in the mouth of a lawyer, means “likely to have a certain effect”. It does not imply any intention on the event’s author to bring that effect about.

Brownlow lent imperceptibly forward, whereupon the most rambunctious flatulence issued into the after-dinner stillness. Thus exhausted, he collapsed gently into his chair with a beatific expression on his ruddy face, a capitulation calculated to outrage those present who were not scrabbling at their neck-ties, gasping for oxygen.

To my inexperienced forensic brain, in my first criminal law tutorial in 1988, I felt calculated implies some calculation. I said so, stridently, and refused to back down. I am still not repentant, even though I failed criminal law.