I’m not going to die in a ditch about it
The pragmatist’s lament, the main reason there is so much flannel in legal contracts, and the intellectual stance from which grows the anal paradox.
|
Towards more picturesque speech™
|
For you are busy, you need to get out the door because it’s your anniversary, or you are keen to enjoy the work-life balance your employer keeps going on about, and the last round of comments include asking you to remove the bold from a full stop,[1] the single insertion: “unless the parties otherwise agree”, or the careful clarification that such prior notice is “not to have retrospective effect”.
You know this is pedantic, oafish, legally ignorant, but — like celery — while it brings no joy, it does no harm. An adversarial conversation with this fellow is likely to end in harsh words or even violence, so you demur: “I’m not going to die in a ditch about it”, you say, by which you mean “I will try to control my animal impulses so you don’t wind up dead in a ditch”, and in that clumsy utterance goes, but only because you think that’s the last you’ll ever hear of it.
Fat chance. In the morning, a new mark-up will arrive, with a plague of “unless the parties agree otherwises” settling like locusts on your elegant prose, for the avoidance of doubt.
There is an inverse relationship between one’s adjacency to a ditch — ditch proximity — and one’s preparedness to die in it — ditch tolerance.
See also
References
- ↑ True Story. This is known as the Biggs constant, and has mathematical and theoretical significance for legal mark-up