Word It the Way You Mean It

By Nick Levinson

Attorneys drafting documents usually try to be precisians with the wording.

Whether a lawyer had a hand in this one is unknown. A foreign correspondent in Asia is sent moving stateside by his TV network’s news department. He cables the home office: “Assume you will pay to move my family, furnishings and junk from Hong Kong to California.”

Yes, agreed.

Soon, the headquarters receives a bill for the trans-Pacific shipment of one Chinese junk.

Many construction sites have street signs warning passers-by to be careful, partly to reduce legal liability for workers and anyone nearby. A common form is DANGER: MEN WORKING. Some feminists would like to collect these signs. I saw another form near a one-story building; the sign said, “DANGER”/“WE ARE REALLY, REALLY HIGH”.

I guess a lawyer drafted something like this, but probably for some other client, and then maybe someone, who maybe wanted to save money on a legal fee, tried to remember it: “By month's end was paralyzed and reports within 15 days include the final numbers of income.”