I’m not going to die in a ditch about it: Difference between revisions

The pragmatist’s lament, the main reason there is so much {{f|flannel}} in legal {{tag|contract}}s, and the intellectual stance from which grows the [[anal paradox]].

For you are busy, you need to get out the door because it’s your anniversary, or you are keen to enjoy the [[work-life balance]] your employer keeps going on about, and the last round of [[comments]] include asking you to remove the bold from a full stop<ref>True Story. A gentleman from the in-house team at Credit Suisse once marked up a pricing supplement, which I had sent him by [[fax]], in this way. At 2 in the morning. Twist: THE FULL STOP WASN’T BOLD: it was an artefact from the low resolution of the [[Facsimile|fax machine]].</ref>, the single insertion: “[[unless the parties otherwise agree]]”, or the careful clarification that such [[prior notice]] is “not to have retrospective effect”.

You know this is pedantic, oafish, legally ignorant, but — like [[celery]] — it does no harm. An adversarial conversation with this fellow is likely to end in harsh words or even violence, so you demur: “[[I’m not going to die in a ditch about it]]”, you say, by which you mean “I will try to control my animal impulses so ''you'' don’t wind up dead in a ditch”, and in that clumsy utterance goes, but only because you think that’s the last you’ll ever hear of it.

{{plainenglish}}