Understanding Archaic Terms

An archaic term is a word that people don’t use in everyday speech because it is so old. However, lawyers sometimes use archaic terms in international contracts. This means that lawyers sometimes use English words that you can find in the plays of Shakespeare but that you will never hear people using in ordinary speech.

An important group of archaic words are those that begin with ‘here’, (for example, herein, hereby) and with ‘there’, (for example, thereon, therein). The text below will tell you something about these ‘here’ and ‘there’ words.

Here is some important advice about understanding and using certain words that often appear in international contracts. Choose a word from the box below to complete the text.

• legal
• archaic
• hereinafter
• mentioned
• clause
• preposition
• delete
• thereon

There are words that some lawyers use that are not part of modern English language. Language specialists describe these words as (a) , meaning that they are no longer in common use. These are not technical, (b) words, but words from general English. Some lawyers believe using these archaic words makes a document more serious. The more modern view is that they only make a document look old-fashioned.

The general advice these days from all modern legal writers and law firms is not to use them. Very often you can (c) them without it having any effect on the meaning of the document at all. However, you will see these words in some documents so you need to understand them.

There is a particular category of archaic words that are very common in contracts. These are words starting with ‘here’ or ‘there’, followed by a (d) . Examples would be words like ‘herein’ or ‘thereon’.

The ‘here’ words usually mean ‘in this document’ or, in a contract, it could mean ‘in this
(e) .
The ‘there’ words refer to something that the writer (f) before now.
For example:

· ‘The persons (g) named’.

This means ‘the people named later in this document’.

· ‘The sum of money borrowed and the interest thereon shall be repaid in full on 5 June.’
The word ‘(h) ʹ here means ‘on the sum of money borrowed’.
Some lawyers argue that these archaic words are more exact or precise than modern English. Modern language specialists and many leading law firms say that this is not true and for this reason archaic words are falling out of use in the UK.

Answers

1. archaic
2. legal
3. delete
4. preposition
5. clause
6. mentioned
7. hereinafter
8. thereon