Laurus Law Group Project: Black’s Law Dictionary, "A - Abalienation"

Laurus Law Group Project: Black’s Law Dictionary
This is a notification. Laurus Law Group, in pursuit of spicing things up, has decided to engage its blog in a new direction: Black’s Law Dictionary. The goal is to accomplish the whole dictionary, and write about it. This idea was rooted in the book The Know-it-All by A.J. Jacobs and by a recent movie titled “Julie & Julia”, with the theme in both situations being the conquering of lengthy and informative books such as Black’s Law Dictionary.

Now to the details. The exact book that will be used is Black’s Law Dictionary 7th Edition, edited by Garner of West Group. This book is huge. Not including the appendixes or prefixes, the total page count totals up to over 1600 pages. Not only that, but each page has anywhere from 1 to 20 listings of words or topics. Thus, to fulfill my due diligence in this project, Laurus Law will not report on every single subject in the book, but instead will write about the five top listings, ranked according to our lawyers. The top five listings will be written of hopefully each day, so readers try and keep up.

Why are we doing this??? Well, Black’s Law Dictionary is a corner-stone of cement in the legal community. Law students, judges, lawyers, and professors have relied upon this book since 1891 when it was first published by Henry Black. There are thousands of versions and languages that this book has been transcribed into and there are even on-line versions and pocket versions of this same book. With so much of the world depending upon this book for their legal definitions, Laurus Law believes that the lay people of the world should have their crack at understanding its terms. Thus, our project.

Therefore, with no further ado, let’s start with the five top listings of the day.

A - Abalienation August 2, 2010
author: Dustin Wetton

1) A – There are many definitions for this word, and while it may seem ultra-common and obvious, what better place to start the dictionary but with the letter “a”. One great start to defining it is how it is practically used in the legal world with the reference to “a hypothetical person.” For instance, when talking about a real estate transaction, the legal community would say “a transfer Blackacre to b.” Thus, in those situations, facts of who the people could be are of little importance, and the focus should be on the other facts of the situation.

Another definition used in the Book is “a grade as ranked by Standard & Poor’s.” With this definition, the rankings of the S&P are of AAA to C from high to low based on their opinion of a stock. Thus, to be sure not to miss anything, the Book has made sure that when A is in a document, it could be in reference to its ranking system, which is somewhere between AAA and C, but who knows what “A” ranking really stands for.

My favorite and last definition for “a” is “a scarlet letter worn as punishment by a person convicted of adultery.” Yes, this was used in The Scarlet Letter, but it was also a common practice in the colonies during the founding of America. This is a great reference to legal history and how not only adultery used to be a crime, but how the punishment matched the act committed. The secrecy of adultery was punished with the constant announcement of its action. How grand of an idea. Oh “a”, how we will miss you.

2) abacinate – “to blind a person by placing a red-hot iron or metal plate in front of the eyes.” Ouch. With my wild guess, I would have to assume that this was a type of punishment used and not a crime, yet I could be wrong. What is even more interesting to me is that the item of metal was not placed into the eye of the person, but instead was placed “in front” of their eyes to blind. It was as if they were trying to be mean, but not too mean. Also, this is the name of a modern band, with very peculiar artwork.

3) ab actis – Latin is found throughout the Book. This is because much of our legal codes have derived from Roman law and thus we have adopted many of their sayings. The word “ab” means “by” or “of.” Here, this word “ab actics” is “an officer responsible for public records, registers, journals, or minutes.” This is in reference not to a modern day clerk, but instead to an officer under Roman law. Yes, even back in the day of the empire, there were individuals recording, registering, and journaling everything in the legal system. This is a hard job, and one with a long history, thus, the next time you go into the court house, pay a little respect to these individuals.

4) ab agendo – there is that ab again. Here though, this word is relating to the inability to act, or more properly, “unable to act or incapacitated for business or transactions of any kind.” I wonder when this word was first used. It could be those with the inability to act in battle, or those who tried to sell their chicken, but were unable to act in a transaction of that kind for their spouse would not let them get rid of the family chicken. Any of which would be completely ab agendoed out.

5) abamita – “a great-great-great aunt.” Or in other words, the sister of one of your great-great-grandparents. Thank God they have a term for this. It is so much easier to say this word rather than the repetitive and confusing “great’s.” Yet, my curiosity is aroused as to whether there are many living abamita’s. The number must be small, but it is very possible to have one living. If any of you readers have a living abamita, I would love to hear all about it.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this blog, email us at blog@lauruslaw.com