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Double full stop: Difference between revisions
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{{image|Double full stop|png|A match abandoned before the final whistle, yesterday.}} | |||
}}A sure sign a document has had a tortured gestation, during which it was feasted on by [[legal eagle]]s from all quarters but — critically — before all was said and done [[deal fatigue]] set in, most of them lost interest, and someone said, “O.K., hang it, let’s just sign the damn thing.” | }}A sure sign a document has had a tortured gestation, during which it was feasted on by [[legal eagle]]s from all quarters but — critically — before all was said and done [[deal fatigue]] set in, most of them lost interest, and someone said, “O.K., hang it, let’s just sign the damn thing.” | ||
What is left is a tract with all the usual [[tedious]] legal tropes but improbably strewn with unextinguished [[blob]]s, square brackets and miscellaneous harmless typos, the most feckless of which is the [[double full stop]].. | What is left is a tract with all the usual [[tedious]] legal tropes but improbably strewn with unextinguished [[blob]]s, square brackets and miscellaneous harmless typos, the most feckless of which is the [[double full stop]].. | ||
The [[double full stop]] — a fossil record indicating the insertion, and then removal, of a sentence of which no other trace remains, but that you can be sure started, “[[for the avoidance of doubt]], ...” is unusually acute in its bathos. It says, “this mattered to me once, gravely, but now I am past caring. I hate you all. Just deliver me from this godforsaken project. Let me go. I don’t even want a [[tombstone]].” | The [[double full stop]] — a fossil record indicating the insertion, and then removal, of a sentence of which no other trace remains, but that you can be sure started, “[[for the avoidance of doubt]], ...” is unusually acute in its bathos. It says, | ||
{{quote|“this mattered to me once, gravely, but now I am past caring. I hate you all. Just deliver me from this godforsaken project. Let me go. I don’t even want a [[tombstone]].”}} | |||
This may, but does not have to, arise during the end game of a vigorously-negotiated | This may, but does not have to, arise during the end game of a vigorously-negotiated deal. Regulators are prone to it, too. | ||
===The Cayman double full stop=== | ===The Cayman double full stop=== | ||
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Of course, this was not what [[CIMA]] meant at all. There followed a hasty “reverse ferret”. But in that fascinating way of modern life, wherein it will no longer do to just admit to a cock-up and fix it properly, websites were updated, correspondence reissued, and the guidance was ''clarified''. The offending sentence was deleted, hastily, you fancy, with some CIMA boxwallah standing over the poor website editor’s desk, temple veins throbbing. | Of course, this was not what [[CIMA]] meant at all. There followed a hasty “reverse ferret”. But in that fascinating way of modern life, wherein it will no longer do to just admit to a cock-up and fix it properly, websites were updated, correspondence reissued, and the guidance was ''clarified''. The offending sentence was deleted, hastily, you fancy, with some CIMA boxwallah standing over the poor website editor’s desk, temple veins throbbing. | ||
“Fix it. ''Now''.” | {{quote|“Fix it. ''Now''.”}} | ||
Time perceptibly accelerates. Its very geometry contracts. The [[keyboard clatter]]s. ''Track changes. Select. Delete. Save. Circulate to chair of asset segregation regulatory working group.'' | Time perceptibly accelerates. Its very geometry contracts. The [[keyboard clatter]]s. ''Track changes. Select. Delete. Save. Circulate to chair of asset segregation regulatory working group.'' | ||
{{quote| | |||
“Please see attached herewith for your appr—” | “Please see attached herewith for your appr—” | ||
“JUST PUBLISH THE GODDAMN THING OR SO HELP ME—” | “JUST PUBLISH THE GODDAMN THING OR SO HELP ME—”}} | ||
And so our embattled webmaster accepts changes, saves down and uploads with the offensive sentence removed, but that obstreperous speck, that infinitesimal [[Biggs hoson]] still mendaciously ''there'', a delicious tell-tale trace of the foregoing ruckus: | And so our embattled webmaster accepts changes, saves down and uploads with the offensive sentence removed, but that obstreperous speck, that infinitesimal [[Biggs hoson]] still mendaciously ''there'', a delicious tell-tale trace of the foregoing ruckus: | ||