I'm a transactional attorney, but recently I've received some criticisms for my usage of the word "such" in lieu of "said" or "the" or "aforesaid" or similar terms. "Such" seems so natural to me. Indeed, I see statutory clauses like: "may exercise such powers" or "may exact a reasonable fee for such license." Of course, such usage may be antiquated despite being current law, but "said" is also stilted, and people often seem to prefer "the" in such places. I can't find any internet sources that seem to back me up. Thoughts?
1
-
1Which of these words may be better depends tremendously on context. For instance, when you offer the example including such powers, we are left wondering, “Which powers?” Please provide more details so we can formulate useful answers.– Paul TanenbaumCommented Nov 7, 2023 at 22:41
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
"Said" restricts a contract to those powers actually stated earlier in the text. The powers (I use powers as you use it in the question) that have been said.
"Such" is wider, includes similar, but unsaid, powers.
For a contract, Such would be vague and may result in a contractual dispute. It is better to avoid its use here. However, you also talk of statutory use, where the inclusion of similar powers is likely to be the intention. This puts the onus on the judiciary to interpret whether a violation has occurred in a specific instance, leading to a corpus of case law.
This is from half a lifetime of involvement with dealing with such issues.
Said means "mentioned earlier". With said you refer back to an earlier mention of an object.
Such means "of this kind". With such you refer back to a description of a class of objects to with the object belongs.
Example 1
Mr. Jones bought five cars. He then sold said cars to Mr. Williams.
In this example, said cars are the five cars that Mr. Jones bought. The second sentence could be paraphrased as:
He sold the five cars that I have mentioned before to Mr. Williams.
Example 2
Mr. Jones bought five cars from the 1920s that are still working. Such cars are hard to find.
In this example, such cars means all the cars from the 1920s that are still working – not only the five cars that Mr. Jones bought! The second sentence could be paraphrased as:
Cars that fit this description are hard to find.
