Endeavour

“Well”, a drama tutor said to me once, “I cannot argue with you about that. You are trying.”

I smiled, flushed with such an unexpected compliment.

“Very fucking trying.”

A verb that illustrates the practical problem with plain English. “Endeavour” is a silly word: long, archaic, and it conjures images of Captain Spaulding, in a pith helmet, slashing through mangroves in the Congo on the hunt for Dr. Livingstone. Its alternative — to “try” — is better in every way that a plain Englishman cares about: shorter, more idiomatic, plainer, less fussy.

But there lies the problem: “try” slices cleanly through the semantic murk that “endeavour” so skilfully stirs up. It makes clear something the draftsman rather hoped to obscure: namely, that his client’s convenant is not worth the paper it is written on.

Consider these alternatives:

“The vendor shall endeavour to notify the purchaser of its intention within a reasonable period, but shall not have any liability for failing to do so.”

Which sounds qualified, sure, but at least carrying some meat on its bones. But the plain English alternative reveals how thin that gruel really is:

“The vendor must try to tell the purchaser, but isn't responsible if it doesn’t.”

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