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-{{a|contract|{{subtable|'''Sample''':<br>“Headings are for ease of reference only and shall be ignored in construing this Agreement”}}}}What is it that the [[legal eagle]] so distrusts about headings?
+{{a|contract|
+[[File:Heading.png|450px|frameless|center]]
+{{subtable|'''Sample''':<br>“Headings are for ease of reference only and shall be ignored in construing this Agreement”}}}}{{quote|“Headings are for ease of reference only and shall be ignored in construing this Agreement”}}What is it that the [[legal eagle]] so distrusts about headings?
-If you are anything like the [[JC]], the [[headings]] are the only part of the contract you ''do'', with any regularity, read. They orient; they provide a superstructure; they provide ''context'' in a world so crushingly bereft of it. So why exclude them from your semantic consideration? We are at a loss. At best, to do so provides cover to pernicious arguments a miscreant might raise at a later stage to justify enforcing, or resisting, a contractual provision the ''context'' indicated was meant for another purpose altogether.
+If you are anything like the [[JC]], the headings are the only part of the contract you ''do'', with any regularity, read. Headings orient; they provide a superstructure; they provide ''context'' in a legal world so crushingly bereft of it. So why exclude them from helping understand what the document might mean? We are at a loss.<ref>It may be, in times past, the headings were added later by unqualified clerks, or something — I am totally making this up — but that isn’t how things work now.</ref> At best, this provides cover to the miscreant who later claims an interpretation the ''context'' — that is, the ''heading'' the term sat under — indicates is plainly fatuous.
-Why would you put words in a legal contract if you wanted them to be ignored? Is that not the definition of [[waste]]? Look, if you don’t want headings to count, don’t ''use'' the damn things, and expect your document to be the kind of grey, unpunctuated [[entropic]] sludge of Times New Roman that emanates from every [[U.S. law firm|US law firm]]. Is that really what you want?<ref>U/S. attorneys: this is a rhetorical question.</ref>
+Look at it the other way: why would lawyers — surely the brain surgeons of language — ''add'' words to a legal contract if they wanted them to be ''ignored''? Would a ''real'' neurosurgeon, under the hood, make some harmless extra swipes with her scalpel for the sheer hell of it? How, in a world overflowing with unnecessary words, can that be a good idea? At best, this is pure ''[[waste]]''.
-If, perversely, you ''care'' about your reader’s easy comprehension, use headings to structure your argument<ref>A legal contract is, after fashion, an “argument”.</ref> but do not then complain if your readers expect your argument to, actually, follow the framework you have set out.
+Look, if you don’t want headings to mean anything, don’t ''use'' the damn things, and expect your document to be the kind of grey, unpunctuated [[entropic]] sludge of Times New Roman that emanates from every [[U.S. law firm|US law firm]]. Is that really what you want?<ref>[[U.S. attorney]]s: this is a rhetorical question.</ref>
+If, perversely, you ''care'' about getting to “yes”, and therefore your reader’s easy comprehension, use headings to structure your argument. A legal contract is, after a fashion, an “argument”. But do not then complain if your readers expect your argument to follow the framework you have set out for it.
+====Objections====
+Now your correspondent is a passionate amateur provocateur, and beyond his wildest aspirations this article, of all the dreck he has put out, has touched a nerve within his community. So let us address some objections:
+''Through the effluxions of the negotiation process, a clause that started out addressing one topic might wind up addressing something quite different. Even the reverse. What if an “[[assignment]]” clause turns into a “'''no''' assignment” clause, and someone forgets to amend the title?''
+Aside from observing that “assignment” would be a serviceable title for a clause about assignment ''whatever'' its attitude to the topic — I know, bad example — this strikes as a charter for the negligent; an articulation of the [[Buttocractic oath]] for our learned friends.
+Isn’t getting the title right — thereby yielding a clear, understandable tract — a basic part of competent drafting?  Especially if we grant, for a moment, that the heading is the part of the clause most people are likely to read?
+If not, why forgive our legal friends only their bished headings? Why not let them off all the other things they bugger up, too?
+That would be a great construction clause:
+{{Quote|“'''Clauses''': The text of each clause is for ease of justification of fees only and shall be ignored when adjudicating the competence of the professional advisers who prepared this Agreement.”}}
 {{sa}}