Becky Moler

English orthography, or spelling, is riddled with challenges. Because English speakers have plundered the vocabularies of so many different languages, English words have no common etymology. This diversity of origin has led to words that depart from patterns, or even adopting a source language’s grammatical patterns that are indiscernible to English-language monoglots. Take, for example, …

LawProse Lesson #297: Anomalies of spelling. Read More »

A learned correspondent of ours, Michael Eshleman, is the county attorney for Otero County, New Mexico. A member of both the New Mexico bar and the Ohio bar, he tells us that the New Mexico admission certificate calls him an “attorney and counsellor at law.” But the Ohio admission certificate calls him an “attorney and …

LawProse Lesson #296: Counselor vs. Counsellor Read More »

Unheralded shifts in voice are a common fault in quoting, as when the writer quotes a first-person reference (direct discourse) within a third-person passage (indirect discourse). Here’s a clear example of direct discourse: “The judge declared: ‘I see no genuine issues of material fact.’” And here’s indirect discourse: “The judge declared that she saw no …

LawProse Lesson #295: Shifts in Voice. Read More »