How do you express the concept of not complying with the law, but without expressing it in the negative? (In other words, without using not, or fails to, or the prefix non-, as in noncompliance.)
Here are some verbs you could use: violates, breaches, contravenes, infringes, breaks.
But which should you use? If it’s a popularity contest, here’s a rough count of the number of contracts filed on EDGAR in the last 90 days that use those verbs (and the related nouns) to express not complying with the law:
- violate (7,881)
- breach (1,376)
- contravene (789)
- infringe (96)
- break (9)
Here’s a different kind of popularity contest—a Google Ngram graph for each of those verbs plus the law, showing how frequently each phrase has been used in the past 220 years:
The results for break show a reversal of fortune: last on EDGAR, first in the Ngram graph. Violate, the winner on EDGAR, comes in a decent second on the Ngram graph.
What to make of this? I’m not sure.
It would seem odd to use breach, contravene, or infringe with the law, as they’re the major losers in the Ngramp graph. That leaves us with break and violate.
But it might be relevant to consider the verb to use with contract instead of law:
Break is again the winner, with breach a respectable second and violate a distant third. But this context isn’t relevant for contracts, where you usually want to be more specific about what part of a contract you’re dealing with.
And here are the results with obligation:
This time, violate is the winner, with breach second and break nowhere.
What to do? If you want one verb to use with law and obligation, your best choice would seem to be violate.
I have a soft spot for break the law. I don’t think there’s any way to reasonably argue that in this context break doesn’t convey the same meaning as breach. (The two words are closely related.) And for what it’s worth, in MSCD I say that breach is “more sober” than violate. So break the law plus breach the obligation is tempting.
And I assume it would not be a good idea to express this concept in the negative, in the manner described at the top of this post.
What do you think?