The Aquatic Dominion of Canada

[notorial dissent]

For me it is the absolute reliance on really outdated dictionaries when the statutes almost always contain definitions of what they are applying, and the utter reliance that there is only ONE definition to a word and that it happens to be the one that favors their argument, and is usually the least common of all the definitions. Or that a legal dictionary has any legal, other than maybe courtesy, standing in a court case to begin with.

[JamesVincent]

For me it is the absolute reliance on really outdated dictionaries when the statutes almost always contain definitions of what they are applying, and the utter reliance that there is only ONE definition to a word and that it happens to be the one that favors their argument, and is usually the least common of all the definitions. Or that a legal dictionary has any legal, other than maybe courtesy, standing in a court case to begin with.

We run into that a lot with sov'runs though. From every type of sov'run, TP/ TD, Freeman or whatever. This words mean what I says it means because the this law says it does, and the law is about the cleaning of horse manure from the streets of Laredo in 1895 or something similarly stupid and irrelevant.

[notorial dissent]

Pretty much spot on. At one of the boards I lurk at many of the excuses/explanations they rely on are based on assuming that a word has only one meaning and that being the meaning that supports their claim, even when in reality and logic it doesn't.