(non-native speaker)
Is there a reason why the English language has “special” words for a specific topic, like related to court (plaintiff, defendant, warrant, litigation), elections/voting (snap election, casting a ballot)?
And in other cases seems lazy, like firefighter, firetruck, homelessness (my favorite), mother-in-law, newspaper.
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Because English is half a dozen languages wrapped in a trenchcoat? A lot of the law related words are from French derivations AFAIK?
Domain specific language is found across all realms of society, even firefighters have words or phrases with a specific meaning (back-burning, pumper, appliance, etc). So maybe its not that some areas are lazy, its just that you haven’t been exposed to their more technical side?
Law terminology specifically can seem pretty archaic because there’s a high need for terms to be stable over time. In other fields and everyday speech terms can change over time. There’s contracts signed decades or even centuries ago that are still binding today. So it’s practical in a sense if the words within and those used to discuss legal dealings don’t change over time.
A lot of the law related words are from French derivations AFAIK?
Yeah, those legal terms have been more-or-less common to any romance language I’ve used.
Most often the “fancier” words are loanwords from other language. Plaintiff/Defendant are from the French “pleintif/defendant”, litigation is from Latin. Firefighter, firetruck, and other compound words were created relatively recently compared to the others. Firefighters, firetrucks and newspapers mostly didn’t exist until after English mixed with other languages.
A lot of them haven’t changed much in the last few centuries either. Law is a pretty arcane thing. I also suspect they don’t want most people to understand it too well. If the legal system is a confusing, overcomplicated, bureaucratic nightmare, then the lawyers will always have job security and charge stupidly high rates for their work.
In general, specialized disciplines (like law, medicine, science, etc.) tend to also use specialized words. I don’t think English is unique in that regard, other languages do this as well.
Many of those words aren’t actually limited to those use cases, but they are used there because they have very specific meanings. A plaintiff, for example, is the person lodging a complaint. Doesn’t have to be a legal complaint, but in legal terms it makes it very clear who we’re talking about.
Others are just expressions. A snap election is just when you call an election earlier than the scheduled one. It’s essentially a nickname for something more complicated. Same goes with casting a ballot. It just means to toss your vote in for the count. It’s just the expression that stuck because it sounds fancier than just saying “voting.”
A plaintiff, for example, is the person lodging a complaint. Doesn’t have to be a legal complaint, but in legal terms it makes it very clear who we’re talking about.
I think the OP was wondering why that person wouldn’t just be called a complaintlodger. Like with firefighter.
A quick “rule” is to see how old the word/concept is. “plaintiff” would have existed almost as long as the English legal system came into being, or probably even older to the court of Assizes pre-12th century.
Whereas firefighter as a profession might have only become a word after the establishment of fire departments by insurance companies, which I think might have been a 19th century development.
Or complainer…
Can someone explain why a job application called “resume”, like in Play/Pause/Resume?
How is it relevant?
(I’m learning English as second language).
Edit: So we’re speaking French now? What? Why? You guys butchered so many words already, can you just made up one more?
Ps: Is that also the case with the word “fiancé”? I’ve been wondering where the hell did that “é” came from.
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The job application one should be pronounced with a long a as the second e. Despite the last e not being silent the u is still elongated. It’s a recent adoption from French. Even though they are spelled the same the two words are unrelated.
This is fun
