PARODY SONG-LYRICS
ORIGINAL SONG: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", from the movie "Mary Poppins", Sherman Brothers, 1963, as performed by Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews.PARODY COMPOSED: Dr.G.H. and Giorgio
Coniglio, 2015. This song is the final entry in a group of nine dealing with Word-Pairs. And, development of the song lyrics resulted in our home-grown guide to legalese, found HERE.
PARODY-SONGLINK: To access ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "Formulaic-Pleonastic-Legalistic Doublets"on your favorite instrument, click HERE.
In spite of various campaigns to improve the language style used for communication by lawyers, most of us still can't understand what they say. One particularly vexing element is their apparently mandatory use of redundant pairs of words in a form of cliché, sometimes having an archaic sound.
For better or worse, there does not appear to be a covenant and agreement between linguists and lawyers as to what to call these expressions. Such pairings of items with similar or overlapping meaning are known as doublets in the legal literature. They consist of pairs of nouns, verbs adjectives or even adverbs, joined by a conjunction, most commonly 'and'; hence they would usually be referred to as binomials by linguists. Linguists generally have a specific concept in mind with respect to word derivation in using the term doublet.
FORMULAIC-PLEONASTIC-LEGALISTIC-DOUBLETS
(to the tune of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" - Mary Poppins)
Now, "formula" applies
Whereas word-order's always set;
These lyrics have been moved, along with ukulele chord suggestions, to a posting on our personal song-blog "Silly Songs and Satire".
Other Examples of Legal Doublets
Other expressions with legal implications were included in my previous posts dealing with alliterative binomials. These include.....
drunken and disorderly
lend or lease
lewd and lascivious
mind and matter
search and seizure
wrack and ruin
A compendium of other commonly used "legal doublets" that you might encounter is found HERE.
Note that a number of the particularly-redundant expressions e.g. "terms and conditions", have been criticized in official and academic circles as contributing to lack of clarity in communication, and have been purged from specific usage in certain jurisdictions.
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And, for those interested, here's how you find the lyrics-only-version
of the nine songs that make up this cycle. If you would like to accompany yourself on ukulele or guitar, find relevant chord charts by following the links that will take you to the versions in our blog "Silly Songs and Satire".
1. PAIRS, to the tune of "Words" in the style of the Beegees
... the following songs in the style of "The Elements" by Tom Lehrer
9. LEGALISTIC DOUBLETS, in the style of "Supercalifragilistic..." from the musical "Mary Poppins"
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