Consider the phrase reasonable wear and tear, as in “The Grantor shall maintain the Equipment in good working order, reasonable wear and tear excepted.”
I know that reasonable wear and tear is standard, but it’s also a bit quaint: Wear is fine, but what’s with tear? Presumably the nifty rhyme has a lot to do with it. (Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage refers to it as a “reduplicative phrase.”)
Furthermore, the original phrase is in fact wear and tear, with a reasonableness standard built in. So in this context reasonable, normal, fair, and any other variants are redundant.
So what do you recommend? Stick with reasonable wear and tear? Just wear and tear? Just wear? Something else?
