TO-WIT: RARE WORDS
The last four months I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, thanks to an appendix that gave up the ghost and almost caused me to do the same. Thus unable to either work or pursue my usual avocations of water polo, pantomime haiku or Rover, Red Rover, I decided to make the best use I could of my extended recovery time by getting to all the reading that I’d been putting off since my bar mitzvah. And of course, just like you, the first thing on my list was Black’s Law Dictionary.
I have always had a penchant for rare words, and Black’s is full of them. I still have the edition I used during my first year of law school, and that was more than thirty five years ago. Oh, there have been subsequent editions, many, in fact, but the way I figure it why should I get a new one when I haven’t finished reading the old one yet? You can laugh, sure, but that selfsame philosophy has saved me a fortune on Pa. Reporters over the years.
More to the point however, I have learned a great deal from my sojourn into Black’s. For instance, you are certainly all familiar with the famous but very rarely used phrase “caeteris tacentibus,” meaning “the other judges expressing no opinion.” But did you know that Caeteris Tacentibus was a real man, a Roman judge who, while presiding over Family Court, found himself much against his will adjudicating the divorce of his mistress from her husband.
When asked by husband’s counsel to deny alimony, a ruling which was clearly supported by both law and facts, wife stood up, put her hands on her waist, started tapping her foot petulantly and said “Well, sweetums, what’cha gonna do, huh?” At that point, Judge Tacentibus was apparently unable to utter a sound, a response that has come down through history to us known as “pulling a tacentibus.”
Well, Black’s is full of such wonders, and for your enlightenment, here are some more just as meaningful.
QUARE CLAUSUM FREGIT – Literally translated, this means “wherefore he broke the close,” and was always thought to be a form of trespass upon real estate. According to Black’s however, this is incorrect. It actually derives from a phrase coined by the plaintiff in the Elizabethan case of Schmendrick v. Speedy Izzy’s, and is the first reported lawsuit in which a disgruntled customer sued his dry cleaner for damages.
PECUNIA TRAJECTITIA – Long believed to be an early form of commercial transaction somewhat akin to Freight On Board, it turns out that this was actually the name of ancient Rome’s first and only commercial airline. For money (pecunia) a traveler was hoisted into an oversized catapult and hurled through the air in approximately the right trajectory for the desired destination. The takeoffs were okay but landings were a tad beastly, in flight service was sketchy at best, and eventually the endeavor failed when customers tired of having to make so many connecting flights just to get across the city.
SUBNERVARE – the act of cutting the sinews of the legs and thighs so as to render the victim incapable of standing. Prior to the invention of the clock, this was the primary technique by which appellate courts let counsel know that their time for oral argument had expired.
COMPOS MENTIS – now taken to mean “sound of mind,” the original phrase was “composte mentis,” and was used to describe someone who was obsessed with the scatological.
DE CHAR, ET DE SANK – from Italian jurisprudence, this cause of action refers to a products liability lawsuit in which a very corpulent plaintiff is injured when a poorly made chair collapses.
FORUM BOVARIUM – In ancient Rome, the court dedicated to resolving disputes between cows.
HAIMSUCKEN – In Scottish law, the crime of assaulting a person in his or her own house.
NOWYURSUCKEN – A Scottish act of revenge.
© 2002– S. Sponte, Esq.