Like The Breath Of An Unfeed Lawyer - Oὐδὲν ἐξ Oὐδενός

Borrowing from the 43rd episode of Seinfeld, entitled "The Pitch", today's post is about nothing. In that episode, George Costanza famously conceives the idea of "a show about nothing". In fact, William Shakespeare preceded George by writing a play...

Why "Laying Down The Law" Is Redundant

The word "law" is ultimately derived from the plural form of the Old Norse word lag which had the sense of laying in order.  The Old Norse word became the Old English word for law, lagu.  Thus, the phrase "laying down the law" essentially means to lay...

California Supreme Court Declines To Decide Whether A Bumble Bee Is A Fish

In June, I and many others took note of an opinion issued by the California Court of Appeal that concluded a bumble bee could be designated as a fish as defined by Section 45 of the California Fish & Game Code. Almond All. of California v. Fish &...

California Court Declares A Bumblebee To Be A Fish

Nearly seven years ago, I commented on a California statute defining "fish" to mean "a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals". Cal. Fish & Game Code § 45. While I don't consider a...

Bothered By Silent Letters?  Sometimes Latin Is To Blame

Many legal words include silent letters. For example, what possible reason could there be for including a "c" in the word "indict" or a "b" in the word "doubt"? The inclusion of these seemingly useless letters is neither arbitrary nor capricious....

Leopold Bloom's Longest Day Was Today

“Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.”

On June 16, 1904, Leopold Bloom started his day at No. 7 Eccles Street in Dublin, Ireland with kidneys on his mind. Indeed, his first errand of the day was a trip around the...

Business Lawyering During The Covid-19 Murrain

A year ago, "all changed, changed utterly". In February 2020, I doubt very few, if anyone, would have anticipated that schools, government offices, houses of worship, museums, offices, theaters, and restaurants would be closed and that people would...

They Say That Breaking Up Is Hard To Do . . . Will Californians Vote On Secession?

"It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day — and when she...

When Will California's State Of Emergency End?

On March 4, 2020, California's Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a "state of emergency" as a result of the outbreak of a respiratory illness in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The term "state of emergency" is just one of three degrees of emergency...

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