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For the avoidance of doubt: Difference between revisions
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{{a|g|{{image|Rene Descartes|jpg|I ''think'' this is [[René Descartes]]. But ...}} | |||
{{subtable|The [[JC]] likes to rush in, as you know, where fools fear to tread. So let us try to achieve what Descartes could not. If you cannot ''avoid'' it, at least put a ''name'' on it. So let us — [[for the avoidance of doubt]] — thoroughly define what we ''mean'' by “[[doubt]]”: | |||
===The meaning of doubt=== | |||
{{ftaod}} | |||
}}}}{{quote| | |||
{{rice pudding and income tax}}}} | |||
===Should a lawyer ever say these words?=== | |||
When one whose [[Legal eagle|livelihood]] attests to unusual semantic facility — uses the ugly expression “[[for the avoidance of doubt]]”, she surrenders without a shot to the demands of the English language. Even as a piece of English the phrase is hideous: who [[Nominalisation|converts]] “avoid” into a [[noun]]? What kind of glass-half-empty misanthrope sets as a guiding objective ''not being confusing''? | |||
“You had one job”, so the saying goes | “You had one job”, so the saying goes: it is to express yourself in a way that ''doesn’t contain doubt in the first place''. For what is the point of a {{tag|contract}} if not to clear up the confusion left by the primordial grunts, nods and mumblings of interacting merchants? | ||
This is how it usually plays | Our plea falls upon deaf ears. We know this. This is how it usually plays — this is, honest to God, a real-life example: | ||
{{quote|''The [[chargor]] [[Assign|assigns]] and agrees to assign<ref>What, by the way, on earth was going though the mind of whoever confected that expression? “Assigns ''and agrees to assign'”'? Is this to distinguish from those who assign at gunpoint?</ref> absolutely, [[subject to]] the [[proviso]] for re-assignment on redemption, all of its rights in respect of the assigned receivables, together with the benefit of any security granted to the [[chargor]] thereof (and together in all cases, [[for the avoidance of doubt]], with the proceeds thereof).''}} | |||
Do you feel reinvigorated with clarity, readers? | |||
Speaking of God, it is a little known fact that [[Descartes]]’ metaphysical epic {{br|Discourse on the Method}} was a spirited attempt to define the expression ''[[for the avoidance of doubt]]''. He started by asking, “what ''is'' doubt? Can we ever be sure that what we ''think'' is doubt, is, actually, ''doubt''? And if there is some doubt about that, how should we feel about it? Doubtful?” | |||
{{ | Poor old Descartes never figured that out, but found himself — at least as a ''[[res cogitans|thinking thing]]'' — and he found God, too — well, he ''thought'' he did — along the way, so his day wasn’t totally wasted. | ||
Yet, ''what is doubt''? What is this existential flummery, that fogs our interior on even the sunniest day? Whence that numbing smoke, that more thickly fills our mortal cockpit, day by day? | |||
===Doubt-avoidance as the job description=== | |||
One might make the case that the entire role of a commercial solicitor can be boiled down to “avoiding ''destructive'' doubt” that undermines commercial relationships. That’s the day job. Now there may be some nugatory regulatory cross-checks required, to be sure, but as [[regulation]] is typically designed not to be flakey or ambiguous — an ambition it does sometimes fall short of, I grant you — the job of advising on it ought not be the one that keeps home fires burning. | |||
{{doubt evasion}} | |||
===Recursive doubt avoidance=== | |||
None of this will stop [[ninja]]-types on their crusade to exterminate doubt wherever they can find it. That elite force of lexical purists, {{icds}}, has in recent times begun ''nesting'' doubt-avoidance subroutines, presumably fearful that uncertainly might leech into a construction ''even during the process of driving it out''. <ref>For example, in the definition of {{euaprov|Settlement Disruption Event}} in the EU Emissions Allowance Annex.</ref> | |||
How to ensure such second-order neurosis does not rot your verbal superstructure from the inside out, like some kind of insidious rising damp? Fear not, the JC, as ever, has your back: add this in, like a doubt-course membrane: | |||
{{quote|“''For the avoidance of doubt, this paragraph is intended to, shall be [[deemed]] to and, [[notwithstanding anything to the contrary hereinbefore contained]] ''does'' avoid any and all doubt [[Any type, kind or variety|of any type, kind or variety]] provided that it shall not be deemed to, and shall accordingly not, amend, alter or affect the foregoing passage, which passage does not, for the avoidance of doubt and notwithstanding this present clarification as it may, [[from time to time]] be amended updated or clarified, introduce any doubt, (other than, for the avoidance of doubt, those previously-identified doubts as may have been conclusively eliminated by the doubt-avoiding effect of this present clarification)''.”}} | |||
===The case for doubt avoidance=== | |||
{{for clarity}} | |||
{{sa}} | |||
*[[Doubt]] | |||
*[[Certainty]] | |||
{{ref}} | |||