More irritating writing habits ("Irritating Things")

A long-standing friend dropped me a line yesterday, having read my posting, to reminisce about teaching Wills - something that I'd probably want to forget, had I ever done it: I certainly want to forget about teaching conveyancing, as the students did immediately -  and reinforcing numerals with the numbers spelt out in full. That way round, definitely.

[The] primary reason was to add certainty to the will which was only likely to be read after someone died and avoid "He definitely said he was going to leave me £100,000 - £10,000 cannot be right!" and [the] secondary reason was to draw attention to numbers when someone (usually emotionally) was checking through a will prior to signing. I kept the habit in commercial life because when prices were being changed from draft to draft over (sometimes) months - the words really helped keep track of totals payable.

Yesterday I was reading through a contract, drafted by one party and apparently approved by another, and evidently satisfactory as far as my client was concerned. I was however the first lawyer ever to come anywhere near it ... It purported to deal with the paternity right of a corporate body, and also protected the personal data of the three parties none of which are natural persons; it required none of the parties to do more than use reasonable endeavours to discharge the key obligations it imposed; and, the real reason for this digression, it contained many words and phrases given capital initials in the manner of defined terms, but not a single definition. Which reminded me how much I hate unnecessary defined terms.

Don't get me wrong, I love the way playing with defined terms in a legal document can have a huge effect on its meaning, and how a long and impenetrable contract can be made so much more terse and comprehensible by judicious use of defined terms. If I were minded to improve the one I read yesterday the first thing I would be would be to introduce a set of defined terms. I don't, however, feel that defined terms add anything except pomposity to client briefings and newsletters of the sort mass-produced by what I suppose we can now properly call "law firms", those professional organisations formerly known as firms of solicitors. Here's a doubly appalling example (no names, no packdrill) which I found after about 15 seconds' research on the Net:

The Bribery Act 2010 (the Act) 
The Bribery Act 2010 (the Act) came into force on 1 July ...

Classic! Just in case, in an article about the Bribery Act 2010, the reader would have trouble understanding what the author (who was not identified) meant by the expression "the Act". This is what  Robert St Ivo might call the Statement of the Bleeding Obvious school of drafting. I wonder whether it was a fee earner or someone in the firm's marketing department (they definitely have one) who created that abomination?

Even when used in legal documents, the irritation value of defined terms is greatly enhanced when bold type is used for them. I fail to see what additional value this has, unless the document is being written for the benefit of someone who is too dim to understand how these things work. The same goes for defined terms in block capitals, which are less often encountered but which seem to me to be equally unnecessary.

Next: date formats. I can hardly wait to let off steam!

Three (3) things that really irritate me ...

I already aired my views about the bastard conjunction (pace Viscount Simon LC) "and/or", and I just encountered another piece of drafting nonsense that always gets my goat. I entered a competition online, and the rules state -

Two (2) prizes are available. Prize A consists of two (2) economy return flights from Heathrow to Rome and three (3) nights accommodation in a four (4) star hotel in a double/twin room on a bed and breakfast basis. Prize B consists of two (2) economy return flights from Glasgow to Rome via Heathrow and three (3) nights accommodation in a four (4) star hotel in a double/twin room on a bed and breakfast basis.

You don't need to know whose competition it is - anyway, I don't want everyone entering and lengthening the already considerable odds against my winning. What is it with this "number (numeral)" thing? And why that way round? I recall seeing it first, many years ago, where the number was spelt out in words to avoid ambiguity. That was probably back in the dark ages when people wrote using pen and ink (as I was reminded when I wrote a rare cheque yesterday), or typed on sometimes-not-very-legible typewriters, but there is not the slightest possibility of ambiguity arising in clearly presented type on a computer screen. Why do it? There are rules - somewhat variable ones - about when to spell out and when to use numerals: the Oxford Style manual tells me that at OUP the change is at 100, which seems very high; the Economist Pocket Style Manual sets it at 11. The author of the competition rules doesn't seem to agree with either. Would Viscount Simon have called these "bastard numbers", I wonder?

My third bugbear - might as well get them all off my chest at once - is the common use of 23:59 as closing time for competitions and other matters that require precision in this regard. Fine, the promoters are at liberty to set whatever closing time they like, and if they wish to have the competition close at such an odd time of day that's their privilege. If they are potentially giving something to me for nothing, I won't quibble about the qualifying terms. If, however, they have chosen to use one minute to midnight because they cannot grasp, or fear that entrants will not be able to grasp, that the day ends at 24:00, I have no sympathy. It is not a difficult concept. It is not even difficult to grasp that 24:00 one day is exactly the same instant as 00:00 the next. To carve out a minute here and there is nothing but laziness, and a lack of intellectual rigour.

And if I were to enumerate a fourth, it would be the unbalanced parallel construction, but let's leave that for now.