Legal Term for Avoiding the Question

Despite all the great synonyms for “lie”, my word of choice is “no side”. Whether it`s a parent who doesn`t really know why the sky is blue but needs to save face with their child, or a politician who doesn`t want to be caught answering a question with a horde of journalists recording their every statement for posterity, the way out of traffic is to dodge with an answer. Which lies somewhere between the vague lie and the outright lie. Although in some cases almost identical to avoid, avoidance often involves avoidance as a matter of usual practice or policy and may involve disgust or disgust. Special terms can be a useful shortcut within a given audience and can be the clearest way to communicate with that group. However, going beyond the technical terms needed to write in jargon can lead to misunderstandings or alienation, even if your only readers are specialists. She dodged the journalist`s question. They get around the real problem. When we say don`t use jargon, we`re not advocating omitting the necessary technical terms, but we`re saying you should make sure your language is as clear as possible. For example, there may be no other correct way to refer to a “breaker valve control ring”.

But that doesn`t stop you from saying, “Tighten the strand valve control ring safely” instead of “Apply enough torque to the stretcor valve control ring to ensure that the entire control ring is securely connected to the clamp so that no loosening can occur under normal conditions.” The first is the necessary use of a technical term. The second is jargon. If a court is faced with a legal dispute and a previous court has ruled on the same or closely related issue, the court will make its decision in accordance with the decision of the previous court. The court which ruled on the previous instance must be binding on the court; Otherwise, the previous decision is only convincing. In Kimble v. Marvel Enterprises, the U.S. Supreme Court described the reasoning behind stare decisis as “promoting the balanced, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, promoting the use of judicial decisions, and contributing to the real and perceived integrity of the judicial process.” For example, in Michaelson et al. v. United States ex rel. In Chicago, the Court interpreted the Clayton Act`s requirement that a jury trial for contempt of court charges applied exclusively to criminal contempt, since the law requiring jury trials for contempt of civil court raises constitutional issues.

“Shall” is also losing popularity in legal circles. Obviously, it`s especially important in regulations to clearly use authoritative words, and many legal experts recommend avoiding the archaic and ambiguous “should” in favor of another word, depending on your meaning. To learn more about “shall,” see Using “shall” to convey requirements. Escape, avoid, dodge, escape, avoid, avoid, mean, walk away or stay away from something. Escape emphasizes that one escapes or is not necessarily overwhelmed by conscious effort or intention. Nothing escapes your sharp eyes, avoid stress proactively and cautiously to stay away from dangers or difficulties. Trying to avoid past mistakes involves dexterity, ingenuity or a lack of scruples about escaping or avoiding. Dodging the question by changing the subject implies a slippery or confusing quality in the person or thing escaping. What she sees in him often escapes me, often involves avoidance as a matter of usual practice or politics, and may involve disgust or disgust. You have avoided your responsibility, implying that avoidance or omission is reckless or unpleasant. A playwright who avoids melodramatists Readers complain more about jargon than any other spelling mistake because writers often don`t realize that terms they know well can be difficult or meaningless to their audience.

Try to replace jargon with everyday language as often as possible. Consider the following pairs. The simplest version conveys technical information as accurate and clear as the jargon-laden version. To respond directly to the original message: You want to avoid questions that can only be answered by decree. (Less formal, but perhaps more specific, one could dodge, which is often used in the example of a question asked.) Professor Joseph Kimble (2006), a well-known expert on legal writing, warns against avoiding the words and formalisms that make legal writing smell musty. It includes the following words in its list of examples: In practice, this often means that when the Supreme Court is faced with two possible interpretations of a law; Since one is clearly constitutional and the other is questionably constitutional, the Court will interpret the law in such a way that it has unambiguous constitutional significance in order to avoid the harsh constitutional questions that would accompany the other interpretation. This can happen if the respondent does not know the answer and wants to avoid embarrassment, or if the respondent is being asked or questioned in a debate and wants to avoid a direct answer. In ethics, evasion is an act that deceives by saying a true statement that is irrelevant or leads to an erroneous conclusion. For example, a man knows that another man is in a room in the building because he heard it, but in response to a question says, “I did not see it”, thus avoiding lies and also avoiding making a revelation. In some situations, the words dodge and avoid are roughly equivalent. Dodging, however, involves skill, ingenuity, or unscrupulousness in escaping or avoiding. If you have no other way to express an idea than by using technical language, be sure to define your terms.

However, it is preferable to keep the definitions to a minimum. Remember to write to communicate, not to impress. Of course, if you do, you should use less jargon. For more information about definitions, see Managing Definitions. Similarly, this is sometimes referred to in a commentary as “dodging the question” (h/t Scott). Dodging is a rhetorical technique in which answering a question is intentionally avoided. This may be the case if the respondent does not know the answer and wants to avoid embarrassment, or if the person is being questioned or questioned in a debate and wants to avoid a direct answer. [1] Open evasion of questions can sometimes be used humorously to avoid a public response in a political discussion: When a reporter praised Mayor Richard J. Daley asked why Hubert Humphrey lost the state of Illinois in the 1968 presidential election, Daley replied, “He lost it because he didn`t get enough votes.” [2] When Larry King asked Putin what happened to the Kursk submarine, Putin replied: “It sank.”[3] Often, the purpose of dodging a question is to make it look like the question has been answered so that the person who asked the question is satisfied with the answer and does not know that the question has not received a correct answer. A false accusation of dodging questions can sometimes be made as a dishonest tactic in debate, in the informal error of the invited question.

A common way out of this argument is not to answer the question (e.g. with a simple “yes” or “no”), but to challenge the assumption behind the question. This can lead to the interviewee being accused of “evading the question”. Is there a verb for someone trying to dodge the question by digressing? Or to spoil the answer, to create confusion? Or to give a vague answer? Note, however, that both are typically used in contexts where the speaker wants to actively mislead or avoid engaging in a response, rather than simply avoiding having to respond completely.