Hereinafter, herein, and hereof;
Fancy words used in law — hard to love.
Hence I try not to use them,
I never abuse them,
And hereby ban hereinabove.
Posts Tagged ‘Legal Jargon’
Irksome Lingo (Limerick)
Tuesday, September 7th, 2021Redundant Limerick
Sunday, May 3rd, 2015Redundant Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
I avow and aver and declare
And affirm and attest and I swear:
The redundancy flaw
From practicing law
Ain’t impairing my lim’ricks. So there!
Macaronic Limerick
Monday, April 25th, 2011First off, this limerick (despite its name) has nothing to do with macaroni. I’m not suffering from Passover pasta-withdrawal. Nor do my dreams (or nightmares) ever feature anything of a noodle nature.
So why the title? I just learned, from the delightfully informative Miss Rumphius, about the rare and usually comic form called macaronic verse. What the heck is macaronic verse? We’re told that it’s a usually absurd and nonsensical “poem in a mixture of two languages, one of them preferably Latin,” and that “the poet usually subjects one language to the grammatical laws of another to make people laugh.”
So naturally I had to try it, mixing legal terms (mostly Latin) in with standard limerick English:
Macaronic Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The corpus is AWOL. Oh my!
I attest that I left it hereby.
What a bona fide mess.
My mentis has stress.
It’s de facto I mortemed that fly.
(Linked at We Write Poems pairings prompt.)
New York Haiku, Legal Haiku, And Tanka Too
Friday, March 25th, 2011Excited tourists
stop and stare, awed by Times Square —
forget they have feet.
*****
Sleepless, hollow eyes
gaze at legal opinions,
but see student loans.
*****
Windy documents
written to persuade judges —
endless legal briefs.
*****
Libraries, once hushed,
quiet playgrounds of the mind,
kept calm and silent
by strict ground rules, now drown thought
in playground cacophony.
*****
(Thanks for these four prompts: New York, hollow, paradox, and hush. Posted at Monday Memories.)
Update: April 21st is Thank You For Libraries Day.
Billable Pep Talk
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011Today’s poetry prompt courtesy of Writers Block Daily is “chances are.” It inspired me to write this law-related limerick:
Billable Pep Talk
By Madeleine Begun Kane
“The chances are good that you’ll win,”
Said the lawyer, betraying a grin.
“But you know either way
You will still have to pay
Me the fee that is set forth herein.”
Temper, Temper (Limerick & Haiku Prompt)
Friday, April 25th, 2008Today’s limerick and haiku theme is temper. First, my limerick:
Ode to An Ill-Tempered Felon
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A felonious fellow named Mort
Went to jail cuz his temper was short.
He assaulted a mime,
Committing his crime
(And his tort) with a bottle of Port.
And now my temper haiku:
Losing his temper,
He screamed, cursed, and hurled books.
I guess he found it.
Now, of course, it’s your turn. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write a limerick or haiku (or both) about temper. When you’ve posted your verse, please return here and add a direct link to your themed poetry, using Mr. Linky. There’s no rush, by the way, because you have a whole week to post it.
(Note: You may have noticed that my limerick contains some legal jargon. For more on poems containing specialized jargon, check out Read Write Poem.)
| 1. Connie 2. Linda – Nickers and Ink – Limerick 3. Linda – Nickers and Ink – Haiku |
4. Felix Morgenstern 5. paisley 6. Noah the Great |
7. Noah the Great 8. Tumblewords 9. Rob Kistner |
UPDATE: Mr. Linky is now closed, but you can still add links to your temper-themed verse in the Comments. And if you’d like to participate in a new poetry prompt, you can always find my latest one here.
