On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 4:21 AM, Peter Metcalfe
<metcalph_at_11MIP0GG7IXTkXGVKkUYh8BTWjD1RKbMA5_yJ8YjhpSewKAZOouStNYw4XKwPnmcaMgPJO_kc9uUEICEGoXJaWiO.yahoo.invalid> wrote:
> In the good old days when the Normans were bringing the
> fruits of civilization to the slope-headed Anglo-saxon yokels,
> they brought along their legal phraseology with them. But
> here, they encountered a problem - namely making their
> yokels understand their flowery words. So in order to make
> themselves understood, they used couplets consisting of
> a norman french word plus its coarser english equivalent.
> And that is why the English Legal System and its successors
> are riddled with expressions such as "cease and desist",
> "aid and abet", "fit and proper" and so on.
Now I didn't know that.
And it took a Kiwi to tell me!
Informative as ever, Peter, thanks.
Sam.