I think this may be the best legalese footnote I’ve ever seen:
A certain four-letter verb for “copulate,†of possible Scandinavian origin (see Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1977) p. 463, col. 2) appears frequently in the record along with its gerundive and a related noun involving the maternal parent.
From footnote 1 of this California Court of Appeals opinion.
Sometimes you get a very well intentioned email that makes you stop and think. This morning, I got an email with the subject Fw: Engineers Against Cancer. Even though it came off the ECE department listserv (they forward just shy of 15 billion emails a day), I glanced at the message and got to thinking. If there’s an engineers against cancer, doesn’t that imply that there’s also engineers FOR cancer? You could argue that by being indifferent, you are indirectly for cancer, but you usually see the term used when there’s two sides each with clear supporters. It would make more sense if it were engineers against gun control, because you could also clearly see a group engineers for gun control existing.
Note: The email was actually about the Relay for Life to support the American Cancer Society. It’s a good cause, they just had bad word choice when forwarding it to a group of engineers.