Calculated: Difference between revisions

“calculated” is a {{f|flannel}}ish word which, in the mouth of a [[Mediocre lawyer|lawyer]], means “likely to have a certain effect”. It does ''not'' imply any intention on the event’s author to bring that effect about.

{{quote|''Brownlow lent imperceptibly forward, whereupon the most rambunctious flatulence issued into the after-dinner stillness. Thus exhausted, he collapsed back gently into his chair with a beatific expression on his ruddy face, a capitulation [[calculated]] to outrage those present — at least, those not scrabbling at their neck-ties, gasping frantically for oxygen.''}}  

To my inexperienced forensic brain, in my first criminal law tutorial in 1988, I felt “calculated” implies some ''calculation'' — some wantonness; a degree of design. I said so, stridently, and refused to back down. Though it was hardly ''[[calculated]]'' to endear me to my tutor (a dull enough chap, but made magnitudes duller seeing as he was the spitting image of my hero [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Smith Mel Smith], so his absent sense of humour was a constant source of disappointment) I remain to this day unrepentant. I am right; the global legal community is wrong, and that is all there is to it.

Miserable old fart.

{{plainenglish}}