A few weeks ago, I noticed that a first-year student of mine used the word "conclusory" instead of "conclusive." I corrected him -- I was polite (I think), but my job is to teach students and part of the job is to teach them how to use words properly. A "conclusory argument," I pointed out, is an argument that is long on conclusions and short on supporting evidence; "conclusive evidence," on the other hand, is evidence that points persuasively to a certain conclusion.
To my surprise, a week later I read this Language Log item, written by linguistics professor Mark Liberman:
A few days ago, when Senator Arlen Specter was asked about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' statement on the U.S. Attorney firings, he dismissed it as "conclusory". This usage puzzled me; it's missing from the standard (non-legal) dictionaries; and it was also news to Steve of the Language Hat blog, who must surely be in the top thousandth of a percentile or so in knowledge of English vocabulary.
Huh? What do you mean, missing from standard English dictionaries? Well, sure enough, here's the entry from the Oxford English Dictionary: "Relating or tending to a conclusion; conclusive." And from the Random House, by way of dictionary.com, "conclusive."
Shocking as it is to me -- and to several lawyers that I talked to -- but "conclusory," which I'd long assumed was a standard English term with the definition I just gave, is actually legalese. We lawyers are just so steeped in legalese that there's some legalese we no longer recognize as anything but normal.
In any event, my instructions to my class were correct: In legal discourse, "conclusory" indeed means something very different than "conclusive." But of course it makes sense that the student didn't grasp this; he hasn't yet become acculturated to legal lingo the way I have.
conclusory
One entry found for conclusory.
Main Entry: con·clu·so·ry
Pronunciation: k&n-'klüs-rE, -'klü-s&-
Function: adjective
: consisting of or relating to a conclusion or assertion for which no supporting evidence is offered [conclusory allegations]
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/conclusory
Oh, and the correct phrase is "on orbit", not "in orbit". :-) ..bruce..
Shouldn't you say "several lawyers whom I talked to"? Or has "that" become a standard pronoun? Seemed worth asking in a post about "how to use words properly."
EV: Shocking as it is to me -- and to several lawyers that I talked to -- but "conclusory," which I'd long assumed was a standard English term with the definition I just gave, is actually legalese.
Shouldn't you say "several lawyers whom I talked to"?
And shouldn't it be "talked with," rather than "talked to?" If it were merely "talked to," they would not have said anything.
To say nothing of ending the clause with the preposition in the first place....
* Seems the losing side (and dissenting opinion,) is commented on more often and robustly than the winner here, which leaves me scratching my head betimes.
If it has an actual meaning, I'd appreciate if someone could enlighten me.
If my instinct is right, and it's just another way of saying "implicitly," then score this as another reason why people hate lawyers.
BTW - EV I love these linguistic observations. Keep it up.
To say nothing of ending the clause with the preposition in the first place....
As Churchill once said about that rule, "that is a lot of nonsense, up with which I will not put."
That would imply that said lawyers were, in fact, people. A very conclusory assertion, indeed.
"we will give you that document in redacted form"
"we will redact that document"
usually means we will blot out something in there that we don't want you to see.
All well and good, but I can't find that precise definition in the dictionary. Generally redact means to "frame" or "prepare for publication." The definition closest to the legalese is probably "edit."
Meanwhile:
Oh Lord, save us from this errant pedantry. Next we'll be told that we can't split infinitives, or use "loan" as a verb. Get your boot off my verbiage!
"Agent Bork: "You know that guy who's camper they were whackin' off in?"
Agent Flemming [voiced by Robert Stack]: Bork! You are a federal agent. You represent the United States government. Never end a sentence with a preposition..."
No: It is plainly incorrect grammar that hurts the eye and ear.
I recently sat through a very long trial in which the lead prosecutor had a grating tendency to end every question about duration of time with the word "for"— e.g., "How long did you hold that job for?"; "How long were you in school for?" I'm not quite sure if my impulse to grit my teeth every time he asked such a question was due to the fact that he was ending on a preposition, or with the sheer redundancy of the word "for" in that context.
And before anyone decides to complain, the relative positions of periods and quotation marks is a style issue, not a grammatical issue. Suffice it to say that I don't follow AP on this.
I don't think you can call it plainly incorrect when so many people do it . . . and to my ear, "whom" sounds far more awkward and unpleasant in the sentence in question than "that" does. "Whom" seems to be vanishing from English speech.
I know that I didn't learn about "whom" until my high school German classes when we all had such trouble with the distinction between "wer" and "wem" because none of us made the distinction between "who" and "whom" in our colloquial English writing or conversation. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever use "whom" in normal conversation, I've only ever used it in very formal writing &speaking contexts
"Who/Whom" may be going the way of "shall/will" (I admit that I'm not sure what the difference is supposed to be) and "can/may" (this one I will defend to my dying day).
And I have no problem with the litigators' use of "redact" to mean documents with the privileged/confidential portions taken out. What other word would you use? It's all fine and well to criticize legalese that obscures meaning, but the legal profession can certainly have its own terms of art.
People say all sorts of things that are plainly incorrect. That fact alone does not make the errors correct. It simply makes them common. Bad schools that value tuition and retention over education are to blame.
Whilst we are afoot, can we remember the gerund?
We appreciate your being here; not you being here.
R. Richard Schweitzer
The flaw in that argument, Dog, is that over time, if enough people make the "errors," the "errors" stop being "common"; indeed, they stop being "errors" and become "correct." If this were not true, we would all still be speaking Middle English. Language changes, Dog, and the notion of what is "grammatically correct" changes as well. It's life, Dog. Get used to it.
The usage in question is in no way normative. Find a single language reference source that indicates the usage is correct: You can't find it. It is simply incorrect. Whetever may or may not happen at some unspecified date in the future is irrelevant.
You, sir, are obviously a prescriptivist, rather than a descriptivist, in your approach to language, which puts you in the august company of, among others, L'Académie française.
Using "that" in place of "whom" may be grammatically incorrect, and is certainly incorrect in formal speech, but firstly, a blog post is not formal speech, and secondly, I think my original point still stands: if it was as obviously incorrect as you seem to think it is, the vast majority of colloquial speakers of American English wouldn't be making that error.
However, to be perfectly fair, it probably would be obviously incorrect to most people if our schools actually taught English grammar in English classes instead of focusing on English literature. I learned more about English grammar in German class than in English class in high school. In all honesty, I don't remember learning much about grammar after learning the basics in elementary school.
I'm sort of a prescriptivist myself, but one must be sensible about one's targets. There is no reason to object to using "that" to refer to a person. I know of no modern usage guide that says there is.
The article goes on at some length to demonstrate both the historical and current use of that to refer to people. The claim made by Federal Dog (to wit, "Find a single language reference source that indicates the usage is correct: You can't find it. It is simply incorrect") is entirely without foundation.
Again, as stated, you should feel free to speak in whatever way you like. I would never use that/which to refer to people. Further, you shouldn't feel so terribly threatened by my comments. As already stated, your language is your own and you will be measured by it. That's your business, not mine.
In this context, does "conclusory" have a pejorative meaning? I mean, is it always a bad thing to say of an argument that it is conclusory (because it is short on supporting evidence), i.e. similiar to "poor" argument, or is just a type of argument that can be used or even one is supposed to use in certain cases? Thanks.
Yes. I meant "Webster's," and that's what I was quoting. There seems to be some version of Murphy's law that says people writing about usage will make mistakes.
It's interesting that many of those who become indignant about others' "grammatical errors" are most upset by violations of imaginary rules. Failure to follow Fowler's proposed distinction between which and that (which Fowler himself conceded was not an actual rule of English usage) inspires some people to genuine anger.
Hey! Here's something that will really make you swoon, so do not read further unless you have smelling salts at hand: I also mark the difference between subject and object cases in comparative constructions!
e.g., "He speaks better English than they" (as opposed to, "He speaks better English than them.").
Swoon away!
Further, moving the goalposts from "Find a single language reference source that indicates the usage is correct: You can't find it. It is simply incorrect" to "Again, as stated, you should feel free to speak in whatever way you like." is amusing, but not terribly convincing.
Finally, if you want to learn how to fly a Cessna 172, I wouldn't recommend picking up Jane's All the World's Aircraft. Similarly, if you want to learn how to use words, I don't recommend picking up a dictionary.
Waldensian, it's not just legalese. I first encountered redact long ago, in an Air Force class on handling classified material, and it was used precisely for deleting or blacking out information that wasn't to be released along with the rest of the document.
You might remove whole pages from the copy for release, replacing them with a page noting the deletion, or you might photocopy a page, black out part with a heavy black marker, copy it again. The final copy was released, while the blacked-out copy should be destroyed in one of the approved ways for destroying outdated classified documents, since the original ink or toner would be chemically distinct from the the black marker, making it possible (although very difficult) to recover the redacted text.
By the way, if you redact a document for on-line, how do you ensure that the blacked-out words or pictures are actually gone, not just covered up? I recall hearing of cases where this wasn't properly done, and private data was recovered with just a few keystrokes.
Shall/Will is a little complicated, but here's how I understand it.
In the first person, it is a simple objective statement of fact. "I shall be in the city tomorrow." This has been all but completely phased out in modern American English (we tend to use will). Some people will still say "Shall I..." but most people simply used the word "should" instead.
In the second or third person, shall carries with it a weight of obligation or promise. That's why it appears in contracts both properly:
"Owner shall provide tenant with three days notice before entering apartment."
and improperly:
"The door shall be locked at all times."
The Owner above is in a position to promise, assert, or subject himself to a requirement. A door has no ability to accept obligation.
I shall close the door. (statement of fact)
I will close the door. (promise)
Bill/You will be here on Tuesday. (statement of fact)
Bill/You shall be here on Tuesday. (obligation)
We shall never forget the Alamo. (fact)
We will never forget the Alamo. (promise)
They will not eat in the classroom. (fact)
They shall not eat in the classroom. (prohibition)
And I'm not disagreeing that's it's incorrect. What I disagree with you about is whether or not it's obviously incorrect, because if it was obviously incorrect, you wouldn't see people making that particular error all the time.
Greenwood v. Wierdsma, 741 P.2d 1079, 1086 n.3 (Wyo. 1987)