I’m not going to die in a ditch about it
The pragmatist’s lament, the main reason there is so much flannel in legal contracts, 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[1], or the single insertion: “unless the parties otherwise agree”.
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 stutter goes, and you think that’s the last you’ll ever hear of it.
And in the morning, a new mark-up has arrived, with a plague of unless the parties agree otherwise insertions settling like locusts on your elegant prose, for the avoidance of doubt.
Plain English Anatomy™ Noun | Verb | Adjective | Adverb | Preposition | Conjunction | Latin | Germany | Flannel | Legal triplicate | Nominalisation | Murder your darlings