Lawtalk The Unknown Stories Behind Familiar Legal Expressions James E. Clapp, Elizabeth G. Thornburg, Marc Galanter, Fred R. Shapiro
- Price: £53.00
- Add to Basket
Share this page:
- Series:
- Yale Law Library Series in Legal History and Reference
- Format:
- Hardback
- Publication date:
- 22 Nov 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780300172461
- Imprint:
- Yale University Press
- Dimensions:
- 368 pages: 235 x 156 x 25mm
- Illustrations:
- 17 scattered b-w
- Sales territories:
- World excluding India
Categories:
Not just for lawyers, these illuminating histories of popular law-related expressions will delight anyone fascinated by words, by history, or by law and law enforcement
Law-related words and phrases abound in our everyday language, often without our being aware of their origins or their particular legal significance: boilerplate, jailbait, pound of flesh, rainmaker, the third degree. This insightful and entertaining book reveals the unknown stories behind familiar legal expressions that come from sources as diverse as Shakespeare, vaudeville, and Dr. Seuss. Separate entries for each expression follow no prescribed formula but instead focus on the most interesting, enlightening, and surprising aspects of the words and their evolution. Popular myths and misunderstandings are explored and exploded, and the entries are augmented with historical images and humorous sidebars.
Lively and unexpected, Lawtalk will draw a diverse array of readers with its abundance of linguistic, legal, historical, and cultural information. Those readers should be forewarned: upon finishing one entry, there is an irresistible temptation to turn to another, and yet another . . .
"Lawtalk combines enormous erudition with loads of levity-the result being a compulsively browsable book that will leave readers wordly-wise."—Bryan A. Garner, President, LawProse, Inc., Editor in Chief, Black's Law Dictionary
"A genuine contribution in an area where precious little exists. Extraordinarily original and of even more extraordinary scholarship, truly erudite, researched and sourced. I would run to buy it." --Roger Newman, editor of The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law.
“This imaginative book will enlighten and amuse not only lawyers, but anyone who thinks about law, talks about law, or has to deal with law—that is to say, all of us,”—Linda Greenhouse, author of Becoming Justice Blackmun
“Lawtalk is not just entertaining, but also quite educational. Lawyers, judges, and lay people interested in the workings of the legal system can learn a great deal from it,”—Peter Tiersma, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles.
“Well-researched and entertaining...a skillful mix of scholarship and readability...extensively documented with social, cultural, historic, and, of course, legal sources.”—Joan Pedzich, Library Journal
"Lawtalk is serious scholarship . . . leavened with wry wit and a snappy style of writing that keeps one turning pages both to discover more and to smile more."—JoAnn Baca, The Federal Lawyer
"Elegant, deliciously detailed, and authoritative . . . demonstrate[s] that learning can be fun."—Glenn C. Altschuler, Huffington Post
“Lively and entertaining . . . fascinating . . . a gem of a book . . . well-documented and well-researched . . . Lawtalk yields a multitude of interesting and amusing tidbits.”—Donna M. Fisher, AALL Spectrum (American Association of Law Libraries)
“Insightful and entertaining”—Spartanburg Herald Journal
“Fun and well-researched.”—Howard Shapiro, Philadelphia Inquirer
"A group of distinguished professorial lawyers . . . tell us the history and meaning of lawyer talk.”—Jacob Stein, Washington Lawyer
"Very well researched and comprehensive. . .The history behind each phrase is fascinating. . .Provides an enlightening insight into the countless pieces of ‘legalese’ to which we are all exposed daily, but have had little reason to question - until now."—Law Actually blog
“Insightful . . . [and] as entertaining as it is enlightening.”—John G. Browning, Southeast Texas Record
"A witty, informative collection . . . In a refreshingly candid manner, Lawtalk explores race, gender, and class issues associated with the evolution of commonly used phrases . . . Amusing, enlightening, and authoritative, this well-researched mini-reference is something readers will return to repeatedly."—Danielle Ochs-Tillotson, California Lawyer
“Lawtalk stands apart from many popular works on word origins for the academic rigor underpinning its accessibility.”—Rebecca Shapiro, Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America
-
The Justice of Contradictions
Richard L. Hasen£25.00 -
Louis D. Brandeis
Jeffrey Rosen£10.99 -
Louis D. Brandeis
Jeffrey Rosen£16.99 -
The Origins of Reasonable Doubt
James Q. Whitman£25.00 -
Friend of the Court
Floyd Abrams£40.00 -
Corporal Punishment of Children in Theoretical Perspective
Michael Donnelly£23.00 -
The Judge
James Mellon£58.00 -
Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters
Louis Begley£26.00 -
The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law
Roger K. Newman£96.00 -
Regulation by Litigation
Andrew P. Morriss£49.00 -
The Philosophy of Positive Law
James Bernard Murphy£17.00 -
Insincere Promises
Ian Ayres£50.00 -
Democratic Vistas
Jedediah Purdy£50.00 -
Why Terrorism Works
Alan M. Dershowitz£19.50 -
The Reign of Law
Paul W. Kahn£20.00 -
Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought
Michael W. McConnell£32.00 -
Changing Your Mind
E. Allan Farnsworth£26.00 -
The Stakeholder Society
Bruce Ackerman£21.00 -
The Bill of Rights
Akhil Reed Amar£12.95
-
Origins of Order
Paul W. Kahn£35.00 -
To Save the Country
Francis Lieber£40.00 -
The Yale Law School Guide to Research in American Legal History
John B. Nann£32.50 -
Inventing American Exceptionalism
Amalia D. Kessler£70.00 -
Inventing American Exceptionalism
Amalia D. Kessler£39.00 -
The Face That Launched a Thousand Lawsuits
Jessica Lake£49.00 -
The Origins of Reasonable Doubt
James Q. Whitman£25.00 -
Against the Profit Motive
Nicholas R. Parrillo£100.00 -
Against the Profit Motive
Nicholas R. Parrillo£47.00 -
The Colorado Doctrine
David Schorr£60.00 -
Creating the Administrative Constitution
Jerry L. Mashaw£44.00 -
The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law
Roger K. Newman£96.00