Should the U.S. give up using Latin phrases?

[Jacobtm]

I'm sick of all the Latin crap used in the U.S. government, especially relating to the supreme court.

We're in America, not the Roman Empire. No one speaks Latin anymore. It's so ridiculous that to understand what someone is talking about with Supreme Court cases I have to go bug someone who takes Latin in Highschool to tell me what the hell some sort of precedent means.

This is really just stupid. Why can't people speak in English? Or if you need to speak in a different language, why not at least use something that's spoken in the USA? Spanish wouldn't be that bad. Hell, even French, Italian, Korean, or SOMETHING that living people still speak would be alright. At least learning a living language could be useful in reality.

[Alcon]

Why can't people speak in English?

For the same reason doctors speak in Latin.  It's "learned."

[Gabu]

But then you couldn't sound smart by saying stuff that 80% of the population probably would need to look up in a dictionary.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Latin phrases are used in American courts for the same reason that English courts kept using Law French until at least the 17th century.  The meaning of the terms have been exactly and precisely defined and thus their use by those who know the jargon can keep the users from creating unintended loopholes or exceptions.  It's not great, but it's better than using possibly unclear vernacular English.

[Sam Spade]

Latin phrases are used in American courts for the same reason that English courts kept using Law French until at least the 17th century.  The meaning of the terms have been exactly and precisely defined and thus their use by those who know the jargon can keep the users from creating unintended loopholes or exceptions.  It's not great, but it's better than using possibly unclear vernacular English.

^^^^^^^^

And of course, we all know how definitions to English words can be misconstrued, modified and changed altogether by popular culture.

[Q]

I agree with the above 2 posters.

Those Latin phrases have special significance within the American legal system that really do transcend language to become entirely separate concepts in and of themselves.

[MasterJedi]

No need to change.

[dazzleman]

No need to change.

^^^^^^

[angus]

Note to the people that consider Wikipedia a scholarly source of information, that grew up with phrases like "my bad" instead of mea culpa, that needs to have the guy in the next seat over say "hands on experience" when the science teacher uses the word empirical, and that can't locate Iraq on a globe:  Maybe you should consider some other career besides Justice of the Peace.  I hear Burger King is hiring.

If your high school did use latin phraseology to designate its scholars, my guess is that you didn't graduate summa cum laude.  If you graduated at all it was probably ab dermis dentuum.

Just giving you grief man.  Actually there's a reason that latin phraseology is used in law, science, and sometimes even in the arts.  Since Latin is a dead language, then it is no longer evolving.  This can be beneficial if you want something to mean the same thing a hundred years from now that it means today.  For example, we argue quite a bit about the definition of the word "shall" which is an English word commonly used in the 1780s, but not so much any more.  Yet you'll find lots of arguments about the exact meaning of the term (used liberally in the Bill of Rights).  Had the document been written in Latin, the verb would have been replaced with a particular latin form in each instance, depending on the meaning the writers wanted to convey.  (e.g., Must, Can, Will, etc.   Wow, I used e.g., and etc. in the same sentence.  Hope that doesn't confuse you.)  On the other hand, had the entire Constitution been written in Latin, it would have created a scenario (quo vadis) in which many students would have been forced to study the language, possibly brining it back to life and thus defeating the purpose of writing it in a dead language to begin with.  Obviously that would have been overkill.  Like this post.  So, instead, only certain important phrases in laws are given in Latin.

[Rin-chan]

Minnime!

Latina vincit omnia. (grammar may not be right since I haven't been in Latin for a year or so, but you get the point)

Rin-chan

[MaC]

I agree.  Professors sound like arrogant pricks when they use it.  It's also a waste to use it when reading/writing scholarly journals.  The less you can say to get your point across, the better.  Get rid of it.

[Emsworth]

Latin is used precisely because it is a dead language. As previous posters have pointed out, Latin words do not evolve. Their meanings remain precise and fixed, not vague and mutable.

Professors sound like arrogant pricks when they use it.

It is better to sound arrogant than to sound ridiculous. We would have to replace "writ of habeas corpus" with "writ of have the body" and "nisi prius court" with "unless first court." These absurd translations cannot be used with any degree of seriousness.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Note that Latin terms are normally much more concise than their English counterparts. For example: "writ of fieri facias" as opposed to "writ of that you cause to be done."

[Dave from Michigan]

No don't change it, besides you can easily find what most of these phrases mean on the internet