It happens in French too.

A lawyer in Lyons (Lyon, to use the French spelling) complained recently on Twitter about contractual drafting like this:

Par ailleurs, si l’Acquéreur envisagé en émet le souhait, celui-ci devra avoir la possibilité de…

Translated literally, that means ‘Moreover, if the prospective Acquiror indicates its desire to do so, it must have the ability to …’

As the lawyer points out, one could simply say, L’Acquéreur pourra… (’The Acquiror may …’).

This stuff drives him (and me) dingue (crazy).

Chapeau, Quentin-Alexandre Brigaud, for the tweet!

–Neil Guthrie (@guthrieneil)…

Things seem to go awry when people use even slightly complicated sentence structure.

The venerable New York Times, usually a stickler for grammar (of an American variety), initially published this:

More familiar to we of the social media era is a type of …

This has since been corrected, changing that we to us (no doubt after readers harrumphed at the error).

You need an object for the preposition to, not a subject. It would be correct, of course, to write We of the social media era are more familiar with …

Someone else who ought to know better …

As libraries reopen, one concern is how to deal with books that have been returned by patrons. The Australian Library and Information Association is recommending the following:

“For paper-based products, leave books untouched in a dedicated quarantine area for a 24-hour period prior to handling and recirculating. Sanitising books with liquid disinfectants can damage books and is not recommended.”

For more information on the subject, you may want to look at the Reopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums Project.

— Susannah Tredwell…

The first horror is from a tweet by a business school which shall remain nameless (hint: it’s in London, Ontario): There is still a few spots left in our upcoming workshop. Good Lord.

Horror 2: A client of ours is looking for a real estate lawyer situate in Montana. Please. Maybe located in Montana, or just in Montana.

Horror 3: premia. No. Premiums.

Horror 4: I’m free until 10 tomorrow? I dunno, are you? #UnnecessaryQuestionMark

Horror 5: How to Make Working from Home, Work for You. For pity’s sake, lose that comma.

Horror 6: …

A reader asked why we call a group of lawyers who practise together a firm.

The term goes back a while.

In Italian, firma has been used since the sixteenth century to describe a commercial enterprise or business; the word also means ‘a signature’. Firmar and firmare (in Spanish and Italian, respectively) have meant ’to sign a document’ since the tenth century. All are derived from the post-classical Latin firmare (’to sign or ratify’).

English borrowed firm in the signature sense by the 1570s. By the eighteenth century, it had come to mean, by extension, the name under which …

As long as we don’t call it that, though. (In part because Let’s get phygital may conjure up images of Olivia Newton-John in a headband for those of a certain age.)

Phygital is a newish (and unlovely) term for communication or connection that combines the physical and the digital. It comes from the world of marketing and sales.

If you are hosting a virtual breakfast or happy hour for the summer students in your office using a digital platform, you can make it (ugh) phygital by sending participants all the food and drink they need to have an experience that …

Many people have spent the last three months working from home. While most librarians had experience providing services to clients who were working remotely, it was a different situation when it came to being the ones who were working remotely. When you’re used to working in a physical library, moving to providing services entirely online presents a challenge, since a number of resources are still not available online.

I am sure that there are many people who can make helpful additions to this list, but this is what worked for us during the shift to providing all library services digitally:…

Two lawyers at my firm asked which formulation I preferred:

“Notice” has the meaning ascribed to it in Section 9.1.

“Notice” has the meaning ascribed in Section 9.1.

“Notice” has the meaning ascribed thereto in Section 9.1.

Being a dangerous radical, I opted for the second one. It’s the simplest.

Thereto is to be avoided at all costs, and to it in the first possibility really doesn’t add anything.

The more senior of the two lawyers made a good point, though.

Opposing counsel will probably want to add the to it, so leaving it out would only occasion more …

Who would have thought, back in January, that we’d be doing quite so much of this?

It feels like shopping in Bulgaria in the mid 1970s, lining up for the remaining 40-watt bulb on the shelf.

If you live in the United Kingdom or other parts of the Commonwealth, you would be doing it at the kerbside.

The form curb is usual in North America in describing the raised edge of a sidewalk, walkway or paved area.

Both versions are seen in early eighteenth-century examples (sometimes kirb).

Curb actually makes more sense, given that the word comes from …

Never write or say this.

It is just a mask. There is no other kind but that worn on the face (except figuratively).

Face mask is as silly as foot shoe or head hat.

As these twenty different senses of mask that are listed in the Oxford English Dictionary will attest:

• face-covering
• image of a face worn by an actor
• representation of a human or animal head
• grotesque representation of a face worn at carnivals etc.
• facial expression concealing emotion, giving false impression
• human face resembling a mask
• protective covering for the face
• surgical dressing for the face