Category: Queen’s English / Latin Lovers

William Penn first set foot in Philadelphia at the foot of Walnut Street on the Delaware River. It became Penn’s Landing; however the dozens of directional signs in the area point to “Penns Landing” – – the apostrophe has been jettisoned! One can only wonder… Continue reading →

What is the difference between a mortgage lender filing a lawsuit to recover from its borrower on a promissory note and a lender who instead elects to file a mortgage foreclosure suit? A suit on a promissory note is in personam. A mortgage foreclosure action… Continue reading →

In our last episode our topic was the clause and when it should be set off by commas; this time we look at phrases. A clause has a subject and a predicate (verb); by definition a phrase does not. A phrase can assume many forms… Continue reading →

Suppose you are driving through the mountains of Colorado and get into a fender-bender with a driver from Massachusetts. Which state’s law governs the rights of the parties? Is it the law of Pennsylvania? Colorado? Massachusetts? Enter the doctrine of lex loci, otherwise known as… Continue reading →

Look on the back of a quarter (or any other coin) and you will see the familiar phrase E Pluribus Unum – the motto for the United States of America. So what does it mean? Literally, “one out of many.” America was formed from a… Continue reading →

Three years after the applicable statute of limitations has expired, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania brings an action against a manufacturer of asbestos products to recover the cost of removing asbestos from a school operated by the State. The manufacturer defends on the basis that the… Continue reading →

In a lawsuit over a written contract, the opposing lawyer invokes the doctrine of contra proferentem. What is he getting at? Put simply, this Latin term stands for the notion that a written agreement will be interpreted against the party who drafted it in the… Continue reading →

John Dean will be remembered as perhaps the foremost “whistle-blower” during the Watergate hearings in the early seventies; but perhaps a more durable legacy was his introduction into the vernacular of the phrase point in time. He must have used it hundreds of times, and… Continue reading →

The King’s English It probably comes to us from the Old West, the drawling cow-puncher, sidling up to the innocent maiden: “Ma’am, you look real pretty tonight.” Somehow a syllable, “ly”, fell by the wayside and seems irretrievably gone! One more bit of syntax erosion.To… Continue reading →

Adverbs and adjectives have a way of undoing us grammatically. People commonly say good when they mean well, real when they mean really, and (today’s subject, class) hopefully when they mean hopeful.Simple rule: abandon hopefully!How common is: “Hopefully, Mary will come to our meeting on… Continue reading →