Forbidden words & phrases, next up "the aforementioned"

Following on from my previous article "Ever wondered what your lawyer really is trying to say?" where I strongly advocate plain English, this next article focuses on words and phrases that, in my mind, should be forbidden!

The first three words or phrases we’re going to look at, come from the start of our list of 'Forbidden Words and Phrases'.

First up is “aforementioned”. It is usually defined as meaning something that has been mentioned or spoken about earlier. The Mirriam Webster dictionary tells us that the first known use of the word was in 1537. The Collins English dictionary mentions that its main use is in legal documents, and that certainly seems to be the case.

So why are lawyers so keen to use this word “aforementioned”? The Collins dictionary goes on to point out that it was frequently used between 1708 and 1768, then barely used at all until the later years of the 20th century. It is being used now more than at any time since the 1760s! Is this a way of lawyers simply trying to show that they know words that non-lawyers don’t? Surely if a lawyer is trying to be understood then the lawyer would simply say “as mentioned earlier”, or “which we talked about before”. In my view there’s no need at all to ever use “aforementioned”, unless perhaps you want to sound as though your advice is based in the early part of the 18th century…

Next is a short phrase that we often see “agreeable to”. This tends to be used as “My client is agreeable to your proposal”, or “we would be agreeable to your proposal if…”.  But what does “agreeable to” mean? Its meaning is generally along the lines that if a person is agreeable to do something then they are willing to do it. So why not simply say that? Rather than “agreeable to” it seems to me that “our client agrees” is a much more simple and understandable way of saying this.  

Agreeable is of course also used as an adjective meaning pleasing or pleasant, but its unlikely that it will be used in that sense in many legal documents! 

The third phrase seen in a recent legal document was “aesthetically sub-optimal”. You might have thought there would be an easier way for the writer to say that it thought something didn’t look very good…

Social media credit: Lysander Yuen