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(The following was written by a friend on rec.org.sca, and is reposted
with permission.)

From: HAROLD.FELD@hq.doe.gov
Date: 26 Sep 94 13:35:00 -0400
To: sca@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Legalese (Was lots of stuff involving Celts, Linguistics)

          Unto all who read these words, greetings from Yaakov!

          Ferret writes:

          "By the way there are legal documents in Modern English that
          require further translation by special interpreters into a
          form of English everyone can understand.  That is what
          lawyers are for.  Or is legalese a non-English language?"

          Actually, despite many cognates with English, Legalese is
          proof that lawyers are descended from the same wondering
          Asian tribes that eventually colonized the United States
          accross the Bearing land-bridge.  Consider the following
          lingistic evidence, as documented from such authentic
          sources on Amerind culture as F-Troop and Bonanza (after
          all, they were only written approximately 75 years after the
          closing of the American frontier.  Heck, many of the
          descendents of the original tribes portrayed were still
          alive, thus lending credence to the veracity of the text.

          English             Amerind         Legalese

          Person        Someone-Come-Close  Party-of-the-First-Part

          Contract      Paper-that-speak    The-aforesaid-agreement

          Gun           Bang-stick          Either of the following:
                                            Protected-Constitutional
                                            -Right or Dangerous-
                                            weapon

          Note that both the dialects of the lawyers and of Amerinds
          use several words to describe what English does in one word,
          thus, the languages are related, Q.E.D. (Another legalese,
          but this looks like a loaner word from the math-geek tribe,
          which in fact did not originate in any known language group
          and may provide radical new proof of spontaneous
          generation.)

          It is believed that the proto-Lawyers headed west instead
          of east like everyone else in the Universe, probably
          becuase they were engaged in litigation with the Scythians.
           The Scythians attempted to evade the proto-lawyers by
          using aliases like 'Sarmations' (which lead to the
          Samaritans accidently getting their junk mail due to a typo
          in the syro-aramaic) and building boats to flee to Finland.
           This plan was ultimately foiled when the proto-lawyers (now
          going under the archaic name 'Barristers' from the Greek
          description of their talk: 'bar-bar' 'stir-stir' ) impounded
          their fleet (which had conveniently run aground in Crimea.
          Apparently, the Scythians were lousy navigators, but that is
          the subject of a different thread.)  The Barristers followed
          the Scythians to Scotland and Ireland, but ultimately
          settled in England where they could do contingency fee work
          for the Vikings in their ongoing quit claim action against
          the Angles and the Saxons (the Jutes were originally named
          but were dismissed due to lack of personal jurisdiction).
          Here they established a matriachal culture based on
          litigator-women who particip[ated fully with men but,
          following their nurturing natures, tended to
          stay in mergers and acquisition work.  This culture was
          ultimately repressed by militant Christianity, as can be
          demonstrated by the fact that a higher rank than Barrister
          was created, baring the typically militaristic title of
          Searjant of Law.

          The lawyers ultimately came to the North American Continent
          on the Mayflower, having evicted a sufficient number of
          rats.   Here they were at last reunited with their ethnic
          bretheren.

          In case anybody hasn't guessed :-) :-) :-)

          Yaakov
          (A lawyer)

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