Archaism
Definition
Words and phrases that were standard in earlier English but have since fallen out of common use: 'hereinafter', 'aforesaid', 'witnesseth', 'whereas'. They persist in legal documents because drafters copy precedents, and changing them risks re-opening interpretive questions that past litigation has settled.
Related terms
- Deliberate vagueness
- Intentional use of imprecise language to leave interpretive flexibility or to allow political compromise. Terms like 'reasonable', 'material', 'promptly', and 'substantial' are...
- Idiolect
- The language variety specific to an individual, comprising their characteristic vocabulary, syntactic preferences, spelling habits, punctuation patterns, and discourse-level style. Authorship attribution...
- Nominalisation
- The conversion of a verb or adjective into a noun form (e.g. 'make a determination' instead of 'determine'; 'give consideration to' instead...
- Passive voice
- A syntactic construction in which the grammatical subject receives the action rather than performs it ('a notice shall be given' rather than...
- Plain language
- Writing that the intended reader can understand on first reading, without special training. Plain-language guidelines favour short sentences, active voice, everyday vocabulary,...
Explained in
- Legal Language: Features, Problems, and Plain Language ReformWords and phrases that were standard in earlier English but have since fallen out of common use: 'hereinafter', 'aforesaid', 'witnesseth', 'whereas'. They pers...