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Tips Tuesday
Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on research and writing, practice, and technology.
Research & Writing
Gruesome Twosomes
Neil Guthrie
What do I mean by this? Pairs of words that lawyers routinely use together, but would be better not to. These pairs may once (in the late Middle Ages?) have had distinct meanings but now really don’t. And even in the Middle Ages they may not have: many of these ‘coupled synonyms’ (in Richard Wydick‘s phrase) join an English word with its (Old) French equivalent, in a belt-and-suspenders manoeuvre. …
I tried to comment on Neil’s tip but am told I have to download onto my computer Google’s Recaptcha software – which would (a) apply the software to my own website, which does not seem relevant to my use of Neil’s, and (b) require admin-level action in my government-secured computer, which it would take a lot of time to get.
Is this a new feature of Slaw’s Tips section, or something particular to Neil’s tips? If the former, I suggest it’s not worthwhile. If the latter, then it’s up to Neil, but it seems user-hostile to me.