Re: RT list: the 'forthright negotiator' principle

This to rectify (cfr. etymology of 'forthright') all I say. I see, on
second reads, that it has nothing to do with a move being 'right' but rather
being made 'right away'. So, let's re-read his post. Nick: next time, provide
the Norwegian for the term. It may amuse me and educate me further.

In a message dated 1/14/2010 9:29:46 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
nicholas.allott@gmail.com writes:
"Mark Liberman, blogging on legal interpretation in 'a case where "some
of the best lawyers in the world, and the Delaware courts, couldn't work
out the meaning of what they had written"':
_http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2045_ (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2045) . The judge in
the case wrote: "under the forthright negotiator
principle, the subjective understanding of one party to a contract may
bind the other party when the other party knows or has reason to know of
that understanding.""
 
Okay. So I miss to see why this judge had to pretentiously call (if you
excuse me the split) just cliche with an archaism of 'right' as in "right
away!".

"Liberman comments: '[this] "forthright negotiator principle" ... is
certainly something that normal humans presuppose in their communicative
exchanges."
 
And where 'forthright' and 'negotiate' have NOTHING to do with it.
Negotiate, yes, mabbe. Later.
 
"It's part of why "theory of mind" reasoning is hard.""
 
Hard is good. People are clever. If a theory of reasoning is mind, it is
what I call as I will title my next, sillygistic.
 
The 'negotiate' bit may make sense, but I NEVER negotiate my meanings, let
alone my implicatures. The fanfare of Grice as providing an ethical model
for good conversationalists is just that, a myth. He would not allow for
'negotations' at _any_ level of 'understanding' we are speaking of here.
Recall his examples,
 
   "Dear Diary,
       I fell in love today"
 
--- surely it would be odd that the utterer of an entry in a journal is
negotating with hisself in the future. (WoW, vi). Etc. I did use 'haggling' in
 discussion, but I don't think it follows for matters of hermeneutics.
 
If it's candour or charity that we are trying to stress then we should use
the proper words. Negotiate has the bad ring to it. And I know I CAN'T
HAGGLE. Never could and never will. It's _cheap_.

"It seems to me that there may be interesting things to say about this
(and that people on this list are likely to be able to say them)."
 
Not me, but I'm all ears, as they say.
 
"The
comments on the blog so far have mostly focussed instead on why (and
whether) judges write better than other lawyers."
 
Well, a laywer is a pro. A judge is an officer. There's a liability on a
judge who does not 'write' well. And recall that for legalese is the
 
    'forthwrong haggler'.
 
They will use the odd pretentious word when the can use the easy one,
especially in contracts. And they deal, let's recall, with criminals. Who else
goes to see a judge?

"By the way, there have been several interesting posts about legal
interpretation in the last couple of years on Language Log, most or
all of which are essentially case studies in applied pragmatics."
 
My favourite for this is C. Heath, who used to be an ethnomethodologist
studying actual conversation in courtrooms in Britain. His writing tend to be
on the boring side if, er, you get bored soon enough in a courtroom.
 
Cheers,
 
J. L. Speranza
 
Received on Thu Jan 14 17:18:20 2010