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Murder your darlings: Difference between revisions
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====Specific examples==== | ====Specific examples==== | ||
*''[[For the avoidance of doubt]]'': This is an explicit acknowledgment that what you have just written contains doubt. You are a solicitor: a wordwright; an officer of the Queen’s English. You have a qualification in the unambigous conveyance of ideas. Physician, heal thyself. | *''[[For the avoidance of doubt]]'': This is an explicit acknowledgment that what you have just written contains doubt. You are a solicitor: a wordwright; an officer of the Queen’s English. You have a qualification in the unambigous conveyance of ideas. Physician, heal thyself. | ||
*''[ | *'' ... ([[including, without limitation]] ...)'': logically does not, and cannot, add or subtract from the general expression. It is either the statement of the logically inevitable (if the stated instance indeed is an example of the general expression) or it is flat out wrong (if it is not) - in which case ''change the general expression''. | ||
**'''Example''': don't define “[[Tax]]” if all you mean by it is ''any tax, duty, excise, deduction, witholding, impost. [... improvise freely] ... or levy imposed by a competent authority having power to tax...''. If your construction will, you know, ''show up on the Google'' as a synonym for “tax”, then write “tax”. | **'''Example''': don't define “[[Tax]]” if all you mean by it is ''any tax, duty, excise, deduction, witholding, impost. [... improvise freely] ... or levy imposed by a competent authority having power to tax...''. If your construction will, you know, ''show up on the Google'' as a synonym for “tax”, then write “tax”. | ||
*''Use the active tense''. | *''Use the {{tag|active}} tense''. Ensure the {{tag|passive}} is avoided whenever it is possible for it to be done so. | ||
*'' ... unless otherwise agreed by the parties'': This is true of every English law {{tag|contract}} there ever was. The clue is the definition of “{{tag|contract}}”. It’s ''an agreement between the parties''. | * ''... [[unless otherwise agreed]] by the parties'': This is true of every English law {{tag|contract}} there ever was. The clue is the definition of “{{tag|contract}}”. It’s ''an agreement between the parties''. | ||
*''[[and/or]]'': logically, that means “[[or]]". | *''[[and/or]]'': logically, that means “[[or]]". | ||
*''express or implied ...'': that's it: you've covered the universe of possible statements there. | *''express or implied ...'': that's it: you've covered the universe of possible statements there. | ||