On Puny Judges
No, this isn’t about the Great Orange Braying One and his obscene war against the rule of law, or even Bojo the Clown ranting about his ignominiousous smackdown by eleven of the world’s best legal minds. Rather, it’s a lighthearted look at some of the oddities of our language.
In formal legal English, all the judges of any particular court, except for the chief justice, are known as puisne judges. We pronounce that “puny” judges. The term derives from old law French puis né, meaning “later born”. As a matter of practice, the expression is common in legal literature, but rarely used to the judge’s face– it would be neither seemly nor wise.
The language of the Common Law is full of old Latin and French, particularly old Norman French. This is not surprising, because the English Common Law was just beginning to take shape during the Norman period of English history (William the Conqueror and all that), and most officials typically spoke French first, Latin second, and maybe Anglo-Saxon after that.
But before you wag a finger at lawyers, consider the language of religion. Even when some clergy are ostensibly speaking English, you may need a translator. In fact, in many religions and cultures, if you wish to speak directly to God you must first learn an ancient language such as Latin, Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew, Sanskrit or Old Church Slavonic. (I would have imagined that God was multilingual and current with human language development, but I’m no theologian.)
And it’s not just the gowning professions who “talk funny”. Every profession has its jargon, the upsides and downsides of which have been discussed in earlier Friday Briefings, (https://us12.admin.mailchimp.com/campaigns/show?id=2008805) which I will not repeat here, pleading autrefois acquit (or autrefois convict, as the case may be).