Selected Usages

Hot on the heels of my post on material efforts, here are two contract extracts that feature the phrase unreasonable efforts. The first (immediately below) is redundantly tacked on to a reasonable efforts obligation. And generally, using a reasonable efforts standard is more efficient than deploying the double negative involved in expressing that someone doesn’t have to do something unreasonable. … Read More

Excuse me for interrupting the nonstop fixation on AI, but I feel compelled to report another front in the efforts wars. It took me 20+ years to get around to it, but on a whim I searched on EDGAR for obligations to use material efforts. They don’t occur much, but it’s a thing. Here are five examples: I’m particularly fond … Read More

A reader sent me a link to this Times article on “weasel words.” I’ve already done battle with weasel words. See this 2012 post about likely and probable, which features two court opinions expressing differing notions on how likely relates to probable. And here’s some of what MSCD has to say: Even if you assume that it’s clear what likely … Read More

Here’s an instance of the phrase greater or lesser: Unobjectionable, right? Here’s another instance: Unobjectionable too, no? Here’s another example of the same sort: That’s unobjectionable too, right? Actually, the second and third examples don’t work. The first example refers to something getting bigger or smaller. So in that context, greater means “bigger” and lesser means “smaller”. By contrast, the … Read More

Let’s fill a gap in A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting! MSDC has something to say about mutually agree, and it has something to say generally about reasonably modifying a verb, but it doesn’t say anything about reasonably agree. I’m here to tell you that if you’re contemplating using reasonably agree in a contract, you might want to hold … Read More

The relentless Kevin Toll (see this blog post) has proposed that I ditch thereafter. Here are some of his proposed changes to Adams Contracts templates: Regarding afterward, Garner’s Modern English Usage 37 (5th ed. 2022) says, “Afterwards (= later) is often changed to afterward by American editors, though in popular usage the two forms are used interchangeably. Across World Englishes, … Read More

Yesterday I saw this tweet by Kaitlyn Fydenkevez: I have spent a large portion of my day fighting over whether a particular contract should refer to itself as “this Form” or “this form”. @AdamsDrafting, what have you done? What we’re seeing here is what happens when you eat the fruit of the contract-drafting tree of knowledge—you look around with new … Read More

In this 2014 post I express a preference for individual when referring a human being, and I haven’t shifted from that. But today I saw this post by Keith Paul Bishop. Here’s the relevant part: However, corporations may have a variety constituent parts, but they are quite literally bodies (corpus is the Latin word for a body). Thus, it may … Read More