:fume: ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH :raspberry:
[quote=“Black Country Woman”][quote=“Mick”]
Ask where abouts in London they live.
[/quote]
:fume: ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH :raspberry:[/quote]
Well it’s a big place. And Brad Pitt was utterly brilliant in ‘Snatch’, one of the few movies in which Mr Stratham has been permitted to shine in more ways that simply showing his big bald head to a spotlight. And Guy Ritchie is a superb director.
[quote=“Mick”]The whole thread would be more aptly named “Trolling the British” .
Heres a checklist from Uncyclopidia on some good ideas for further trolling. MT and Uroducas use of the Queen already on the list, but theres lots more. [/quote]
Except that you’re wrong, as I never mentioned the queen or bad teeth or bad weather or ugly women or warm beer and I wasn’t trolling, I was sincere. But I confess the title of my thread wasn’t quite correct, didn’t get at the root of what concerned me at the time. As I indicated in my posts, I’m presently (yes presently) dealing with a legal matter in HK involving HK lawyers. Previously I’ve handled a legal matter in England involving British lawyers. Both times I found the process extremely frustrating for certain reasons I believe are common to legal systems in Commonwealth nations:
-
They have the ridiculous requirement that certain lawyers can only converse with the client and give advice, and certain lawyers can only file papers in court and make appearances in court, so after you’ve considered various solicitors, compared them, selected one, and spent a huge pile of cash bringing him up to speed on the case, he then goes out and hires a barrister the client knows nothing about and you must pay for the solicitor to bring the barrister up to speed. Ka-ching: twice the billable hours. In the US, on the other hand, once you select a good, competent attorney and bring him up to speed, he can speak with you, draft pleadings, and appear in court. Much more efficient.
-
They are absurdly anal about the little procedural hoops one must jump through – far more than Americans – with respect to court filings and procedures, so the barrister will spend endless hours dealing with maddening minutiae rather than getting the goddamned case moving, always assuring you (through the solicitor, for which one has to pay double) that, yes, it is tedious dealing with all these preliminary details, but in the long run such tedium is worthwhile because otherwise the pleading will later be stricken or something like that, which is undoubtedly BS, but they insist they must plod on with such tedium anyway.
-
Not only are the above two factors due to the Commonwealth system being ancient and hallowed and the practitioners not wanting to deviate from quaint, archaic traditions, but the language is too. While some may mock US lawyers because some of them are greedy, slimy ambulance chasers, or whatever, at least they speak plain English. Commonwealth solicitors and judges use the most absurd, pompous, verbose, convoluted, cryptical language, apparently out of belief in the sanctity of ancient, out-dated habit, and desire to conceal their ignorance, deceit and poor strategies, or simply a desire to paint simple proceedings as the height of sophistication.
So, perhaps I should have started a thread on “Commonwealth legal systems, traditions and practices are horse poo poo,” but that might have been too narrow, so my title was aimed at that third point.
Understand, I am extremely grateful for the outstanding history of the British legal system, to which the US system is deeply indebted. But in the US we’ve progressed. Commonwealth lawyers and judges, on the other hand, seem to be incapable of evolution. In the US, for example, it’s fairly universally accepted that good legal writing is clear, direct and concise. In the Commonwealth that’s definitely not the case.
[quote=“Mick”]
Trolling the British
The British (along with the French), are the only peoples in the world whom it is still widely acceptable to be racist towards. Here are a few suggestions you can use to troll the British to maximum effect;
Ask them if they know the [strike]Queen[/strike]Prince William.
Refer to the UK as a “[strike]tiny[/strike]an island off the coast of France”.
Remind them that in Britain it [strike]rains[/strike]snows every second of every day, and the temperature never goes above [strike]5[/strike]0 [strike]degrees[/strike][strike]C[/strike] Farenheit.
[strike]Critcise their food[/strike]Ask about fish and chips and picadilly.
Ask if they live in a [strike]mansion[/strike] castle.
Ask [strike]where abouts in[/strike]is that near London? [strike]they live[/strike].
Refer to the [strike]English[/strike]Scottish as “[strike]British[/strike]English”
Refer to the whole of the UK as “[strike]England[/strike]London”
Bring up “bad teeth”, “ugly women” and “warm beer” in a debate.
Patronisingly refer to their accents as “cute” or “funny” and the UK as “quaint”.
Tell them their accents are annoying while doing a southpark brit english accent.[/quote]
fixed
You should find out about “hybrid barristers” solicitors allowed to practice infront of the high courts
I think you will find that this is all law, no? Or do american lawyers rush discovery and just “shoot from the hip”?
Part of this is that the Lords are not officially judges so make “speeches” and are “barred” from addressing the lawyers directly, instead they discuss the case among themselves
And my point is you go after the English/British, when in reality this is not the case. It’s a bit like me blaming Canada for USA-ns or the Chinese for Japanese.
To ambulance chasing and overlitigation?
Also, Lord Irvine put many of your points to rest in his recommendation to Blair way back when, so it’s definitely the commonwealth lawyers you are talking about
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/legal.htm
And luckily the latin is gone since it is heinously misused by many
:bravo: …fuckin A!… :bravo:
(and why is the only language selection “Brit Eng” on the control board? poofty do’s)
[quote=“Mick”]The whole thread would be more aptly named “Trolling the British” .
Heres a checklist from Uncyclopidia on some good ideas for further trolling. MT and Uroducas use of the Queen already on the list, but theres lots more.
Trolling the British
The British (along with the French), are the only peoples in the world whom it is still widely acceptable to be racist towards. Here are a few suggestions you can use to troll the British to maximum effect;
Ask them if they know the Queen.
Refer to the UK as a “tiny island”.
Remind them that in Britain it rains every second of every day, and the temperature never goes above 5 degrees C.
Critcise their food.
Ask if they live in a mansion.
Ask where abouts in London they live.
Refer to the English as “British”
Refer to the whole of the UK as “England”
Bring up “bad teeth”, “ugly women” and “warm beer” in a debate.
Patronisingly refer to their accents as “cute” or “funny”.
Tell them their accents are annoying.[/quote]
As an Englishman I have no problem with most of these 
Of course we don’t have an accent - the language is called English for a reason (insert your own insult here) Yankee
As for why the American legal system is “better”, clearly we have avoided the culture of suits that impregnates modern America and thus our lawyers are not as “busy”. Whilst it may be ok in the US to simply “hang a shingle” and start practising law where cases will fall in your lap, in the UK its still required to add some value and spend some time on a case to make a living. 
[quote=“Edgar Allen”][quote=“Mick”]The whole thread would be more aptly named “Trolling the British” .
Heres a checklist from Uncyclopidia on some good ideas for further trolling. MT and Uroducas use of the Queen already on the list, but theres lots more.
Trolling the British
The British (along with the French), are the only peoples in the world whom it is still widely acceptable to be racist towards. Here are a few suggestions you can use to troll the British to maximum effect;
Ask them if they know the Queen.
Refer to the UK as a “tiny island”.
Remind them that in Britain it rains every second of every day, and the temperature never goes above 5 degrees C.
Critcise their food.
Ask if they live in a mansion.
Ask where abouts in London they live.
Refer to the English as “British”
Refer to the whole of the UK as “England”
Bring up “bad teeth”, “ugly women” and “warm beer” in a debate.
Patronisingly refer to their accents as “cute” or “funny”.
Tell them their accents are annoying.[/quote]
As an Englishman I have no problem with most of these Of course we don’t have an accent - the language is called English for a reason (insert your own insult here) Yankee
As for why the American legal system is “better”, clearly we have avoided the culture of suits that impregnates modern America and thus our lawyers are not as “busy”. Whilst it may be ok in the US to simply “hang a shingle” and start practising law where cases will fall in your lap, in the UK its still required to add some value and spend some time on a case to make a living. [/quote]
I reckon the whole deal went to hell when they threw out the wigs and robes…
I agree with everything MT has said, I absolutely loathe flamboyant speech that has no added meaning. If you must use complex words that others may not understand, at least do so with the intent of clarifying yourself and cutting down on having to use multiple less specific words. Concision is a virtue for any writer, but elitist British “professional” types have hijacked the English language and driven it into the ground with their bullshit. England may have invented the language, but it took America and our spawn, globalization, to perfect it.
Could be.
Apparently they’re not, as they all seem to have the time to transform what could be a 3-page brief into a 30-page not so brief, through the insertion of endless wearisome rambling prose.
I know you used a winky, but that’s the problem – Commonwealth lawyers don’t add value with all their wigs and robes and barristers and solisters and lords and whatnot. They simply turn it all into an inscrutable private game of charades that can only be witnessed and deciphered by those inside their special club, so all others (such as the poor, screwed-over clients) can only stand on the outside, paying them vast piles of money, whilst they cavort about in their wigs and panties, explaining how the utmost compliance with this particular requirement is most grieviously necessary and cannot be avoided without the ultimate expenditure of even greater sums of money. :raspberry:
I thought they didn’t wear panties. Or is that just the Scottish ones?
Whatever, scottish, british, english, united kingdom, same difference. Why can’t they just pick one name and stick with it?
Reminds me of how they’re using this flag in the World Cup
instead of their regular flag
Heh heh…that’s funny!
Heh heh…that’s funny![/quote]
Although, when you talk to a US-er about English being the original language they generally say our (American version of the) language is closer the the 17 century version.
Sade buteh trye, our mythere tonghueh has evolvede moore at hoomee than in the ex-colonie of the Americane Statese
But you gotta love Rumpole of the Baily!
Heh heh…that’s funny![/quote]
Funny because it’s true 
You chose to become a lawyer, deal with the lawyer-talk. You’re coining plenty too, I assume.
Well a chaps got to make a living you know? 
Heh heh…that’s funny![/quote]
Although, when you talk to a US-er about English being the original language they generally say our (American version of the) language is closer the the 17 century version.
Sade buteh trye, our mythere tonghueh has evolvede moore at hoomee than in the ex-colonie of the Americane Statese
http://www.acampbell.ukfsn.org/bookreviews/r/bryson.html[/quote]
Tee hee. Some of the vowels sounds poot out similarly. That’s about it. The slightly amusing question is why Uhmericans think this is significant, as if English started at the end of the Tudor period (modern history). I could understand it if they were claiming to speak the language of Ælfred, or summin.
Perfect tenses. We use 'em more, youse tend to use simples with adverbial modifiers. There’s probably a reason for that, but I’m no longer a linguist, I’m an editor of crappy texbooks.
Why does there have to be a value judgement about language? Personally, I love my language, which is the accents and dialects of northern England and central Scotland (with all its external influences - French, Irish). Anything else makes my ears bleed, especially learner English. But, whaddeva, it’s a ‘global language’, and there are obvious benefits that folk in other countries speak it too. Why do we expect global English to all be the same when it’s not even homogeneous within Britain? We aren’t going to change for some other country, any more than any other country would.
Didn’t Latin die out as the lingua franca because it became so widely used and abused (bastardised) that it was no longer of use as a common medium? Or did I make that up?