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 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 Mel Smith, so his absent sense of humour was a constant source of disappointment) I am still not repentant, even though I failed criminal law. Humourless old fart.

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