{"id":2883,"date":"2008-12-21T21:52:59","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T02:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=2883"},"modified":"2008-12-22T10:07:25","modified_gmt":"2008-12-22T15:07:25","slug":"is-inure-really-a-magic-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2008\/12\/is-inure-really-a-magic-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Is “Inure” Really a Magic Word?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over at the Language Log<\/a>\u00a0there is an interesting post about the word “inure.” \u00a0The writer Roger Shuy<\/a>\u00a0is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, at Georgetown<\/a>. \u00a0He now works as a linguistics expert, often, it seems, with lawyers. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In the post he first describes the ordinary use of the word “inure,” giving an example from a Newsweek<\/em> article, “Shoppers seem inured to the relentless Christmas spirit.” \u00a0Then he goes on to describe another use of “inure” that he found in a legal document, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to get the lawyers to change to something plainer, like “financially benefit.”<\/p>\n

Recently I\u2019ve been helping the Montana Department of Revenue revise the thousand or so letters the tax people mail to taxpayers. It\u2019s been an interesting experience, about which I intend to post more at some other time. But for now, let me cite the following sentence that appears in a number of letters sent to corporations about their tax status:<\/strong><\/p>\n

No part of the net income of a Montana tax-exempt organization can inure to the benefit of any private stockholder or individual.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So now we see two somewhat dissimilar meanings of\u00a0inure\u00a0<\/em>(both are given in MWCD, by the way).\u00a0Inure<\/em>\u00a0conveys something bad when shoppers are inured to the relentless Christmas spirit. On the other hand, to the tax people inure can convey an advantage or benefit that stockholders or individuals might get in their business lives. But this positive advantage for these stockholders can also be judged to be bad (not legal by Montana law), making this good thing a non-acceptable bad thing, at least in the context of corporate taxation. Are we confused yet?<\/p>\n

I challenged the use of\u00a0inure<\/em>\u00a0in this letter, but the lawyers in the tax department strongly objected. I argued that these tax letters are replacing a word with one meaning that lay people know with a word that has another meaning known only to lawyers (probably) and accountants (possibly). But the lawyers informed me that\u00a0inure<\/em>\u00a0is one of those magical words that is absolutely necessary for legal reasons. Still, it seemed to me that it would be clearer to readers, even corporate readers, if the letter would say:<\/p>\n

No part of the net income of a Montana tax-exempt
\norganization can financially benefit any private stockholder or
\nindividual.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To my thinking anyway, if we would replace \u201ccan inure to the benefit of\u201d with the simpler, \u201ccan financially benefit,\u201d the letter would convey the same thing and avoid the possibility of confusing readers with the apparent dual meanings (one positive and one negative) of\u00a0inure<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Were those tax lawyers right? \u00a0Is “inure” a magical word in this context? \u00a0<\/p>\n

I want to say, no, of course not–if\u00a0it means the same as “financially benefit,” then it can be changed. \u00a0But my expertise is in brief-writing and in immigration law, not in tax law. \u00a0Maybe it really does matter in that context. \u00a0Still, I wish it didn’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at the Language Log\u00a0there is an interesting post about the word “inure.” \u00a0The writer Roger Shuy\u00a0is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, at Georgetown. \u00a0He now works as a linguistics expert, often, it seems, with lawyers. \u00a0 In the post he first describes the ordinary use of the word “inure,” giving an example from a Newsweek […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}