: How to head off a legal reading of a term or phrase? I posted this over on the Eng Lang Stack, but they say it likely is more apropos here. Terms like 'make whole', 'encumbered', etc have
I posted this over on the Eng Lang Stack, but they say it likely is more apropos here.
Terms like 'make whole', 'encumbered', etc have both non-financial/non-legal usages and financial/legal usages and, in some cases, explicit financial/legal definitions.
To avoid technical connotations, to avoid the possibility of a sentence being read as a legal statement, an obvious workaround is to swap in such a synonym. But synonyms may not exist, or when one does exist, the sentence may unacceptably degrade.
Another remedy is to include a phrase such as 'colloquially speaking'. But the deprecation could be inappropriate.
What are other ways to minimize the chance of a sentence from being misconstrued in this way? Is there an adjective or modifer that accomplishes this?
Fictitious examples:
A divorce can make whole both parties. (google: "make whole" divorce. For example: www.divorcecentral.com/lifeline/life_ans.html. Make Whole in the sense of closure, in the sense of getting on with their lives.)
The VA is a monopoly on veteran healthcare. (This sentence was spoken a few minutes ago by Senator Lindsey Graham at his Town Hall, see
at about 40:00. Monopoly in the sense the Veterans Administration is immune from competition.)EDIT:
Context is non-fiction, formal.
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