In law and business, this now means an employee who snitches on bad practices by co-workers (especially the higher-ups) but who is protected from recrimination by legislative provisions like s 27 of the federal Digital Privacy Act and s 66.1 of the Competition Act, or, in the US, s 922 of Dodd-Frank.

Think Edward Snowden, but without the subsequent need to live as a fugitive.

All well and good (unless you’re Edward Snowden), but I’m weary of the word.

And it’s imprecise: in a sporting match, the whistle is blown not by a player, but by the referee …

Countless
If this word appears in your bio, please remove it immediately. (Search the website of a major Canadian law firm for the word and you’ll probably come across a silly example.)

It’s unlikely that Bob has authored countless case comments and articles. We could count them (if we wanted to).

And, while we’re at it, let’s change authored to written and admit that articling students did most of the work.

 Grab
This is frequently used in more casual e-mail correspondence (and in speech): Let’s grab lunch/drinks/coffee.

Isn’t it impolite to be grabby? Have or meet for would be …

Slanted type like this, with a number of distinct uses.

Used in these posts to set off a word or phrase that is being discussed. Quotation marks would serve that purpose just as well, although things might look a bit cluttered and fussy.

More commonly, italics are used for emphasis. Go easy with emphasis of any kind: if everything is emphasised, the force is diminished.

In the old days of manual typewriters with only roman (non-italic) typeface, underlining stood in for italics. Underlining can still be used, especially where you’re quoting something that already contains italics but want to …

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine allows users to “capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future”. I’ve mentioned it before since it can be a very useful tool to find information on a webpage that has subsequently changed or been removed.

You are not restricted to using it to access materials that other people have archived. If, in the course of your research, you identify a useful web page, you may want to consider checking if the page has already been archived by the Wayback Machine and—if it is not already …

End result
No, just the result.

 Freak accident
As opposed to the deliberate or expected kind?

Directly on point
A case is on point or it isn’t, and you wouldn’t ever say that one was indirectly on point.

Sidebar: in England, it is usual to say that a legal authority is in point, not on point. North Americans do say a case in point, but typically (I think) in non-legal usage.

Exactly the same, one and the same
Just the same.

Oftentimes
I heard this in a meeting recently, but the OED says it’s …

To a layperson, trite means ‘hackneyed’, ‘worn-out from over-use’, ‘lacking freshness’ – as in Greetings cards are filled with trite expressions of cloying sentiment.

To a lawyer (or a law student after about 4 weeks into 1L), trite law means any legal principle that is ‘obvious or common knowledge’ (in the words of that unassailable authority, the Wiktionary).

The expression trite law has an ancient pedigree. Its origins go back to T Pasch’s case (1478) YB 17 E4 Pasch fo 2 pl 2, where Brian CJ says that ‘it is trite law that the thought of man is not …

Riders of the subway in Toronto will be familiar with announcements along these lines: Due to signal problems at Eglinton station, you can expect longer than normal travel times.

You know all too well what this means, but it isn’t quite grammatical.

Due to, usually but not always following some form of the verb to be, properly means attributable to. It needs to be attached to a noun, rather than the vaguer concept of expecting (in the subway example). Due to is frequently misused as a substitute for because of or as a result of.

So, your …

Terminology associated with things like race, ethnic origin or disability, that is. An area fraught with peril these days, not least because the terminology changes – and sometimes rapidly. Forgive me if I put a foot wrong!

Indian is not a term one should use, except in relation to people from India (and I’m guessing people from the West Indies may prefer Caribbean). Having said that, Indian is (for now) a term of art in the Indian Act (‘a person who pursuant to this Act is registered as an Indian or is entitled to be registered as an Indian’, …

Guest post by Martha Murphy of the Ontario Workplace Tribunals Library

We have good news for those of you who use the Ontario Ministry of Labour Employment Standards Act 2000 Policy and Interpretation Manual (P & I Manual). The Manual has been updated as of Mar 22, 2019 and the release will be available through our Ontario Workplace Tribunals Library (OWTL) website or it can be requested directly from MOL.

The ESA 2019 Release 1 March 2019 replaces all prior versions. The previous version was ESA 2018 Release 2 July 2018.  Please share this widely with the legal community and …

In a previous post, we covered the bad tendency to make a verb out of a noun (action, credential, reference, task and others of this misbegotten brood).

One verb-from-noun that may be OK is gift.

It doesn’t mean anything that give doesn’t, so arguably there is no real need for it – but some lawyers like to use it for things like donations. Does gift sound more formal and legal/technical than plain old give? Perhaps, but that’s not good reason to use it.  

Gift as a verb does have a fairly long history, going …