Unless and until

From The Jolly Contrarian
Revision as of 13:30, 14 August 2024 by Amwelladmin (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Towards more picturesque speech
SEC guidance on plain EnglishIndex: Click to expand:
Tell me more
Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

A cretinous expression that means simply “until”, because “until” implies “unless”. Inevitably couched as a double negative, you may see, from the nib of a fastidious wordsmith:

Party A shall not be obligated to do any such thing unless and until state of affairs X shall have occurred.”

  • Until X” means “at any time up to the point at which X happens”.
  • Unless X” means “except if X has happened”.

At the point in time at which X happens, then X must have happened. Q.E.D.

To put it in a way which noted legal commentator Professor Leonard Kravitz[1] might recognise:

It ain’t happened ’til it’s happened.

But don’t let that stream of irresistible logic stop you flannelling away to your heart’s content.

References

  1. Learned author of the celebrated monograph “It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over”.