Read Online My Mother-in-Law Drinks by Anthony Shugaar, Diego De Silva - Free Book Online

writes it), any legal document, the minute we lay eyes on it, immediately conveys a sense of falsehood. In the sense that a legal document is by its own admission inauthentic. And not because it doesn’t tell the truth. It’s inauthentic because it is ontologically prompted by a vested interest, because it is out to achieve a purpose or a profit and it makes no bones about it. It’s this very shamelessness that makes it seem untrustworthy at first glance.
    Put any legal document (a subpoena, an appeal, a complaint, a verdict, or even a simple contract) in front of someone who’s unfamiliar with the courts and he’ll tell you that: a) he doesn’t understand it; b) he doesn’t trust what little he thinks he does understand.
    And then if that person is actually the recipient of the document in question, what he’ll do next, and I mean beyond the shadow of a doubt, is to pick up the phone and call a friend who’s a lawyer and have him read it, in order to find out what it actually says.
    All this just goes to show you that legal writing is not trustworthy. And that the mistrust that the average citizen feels toward it comes essentially from the fact that he perceives it as a utilitarian form of writing.
    In much the same way (otherwise I’ll be told that I’m being unfair to my fellow members of the bar), though to a lesser degree, the average citizen is mistrustful of journalistic writing (the kind of writing in the newspapers that he doesn’t buy), as well as of advertising copy (even though—and this is a paradox—he’s not all that embarrassed to purchase a product for which he’s seen a commercial that strikes him as overtly dishonest).
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    Let’s take a look at a nice concrete example of utilitarian writing and disinterested writing. An example that has to do with me, since I am its author; but I’ll examine myself the way an entomologist would examine an insect, I promise.
    Example of utilitarian writing (source: Brood.doc by Vincenzo Malinconico, hidden in folder “Photographs, Happy Village in Marina di Camerota, July 2004”):
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    Perhaps we ought to begin to consider whether this relationship, rather than improving our lives, isn’t simply complicating them. In that case perhaps we should ask ourselves what has broken between us, and why. Then, together, we can find the least painful solution for us both.
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    As you can plainly see, the style of writing that governs these phrases slithers along a path of disingenuous hypocrisy of a pretty coarse variety. It’s a kind of reptilian writing, which spots its prey from a distance and then draws closer in ever-tightening circles, awaiting the perfect opportunity to lunge and sink its fangs into it.
    The author pretends to start from a potential doubt (before even touching down on the verb “to consider”—which already in and of itself suggests no real volition—he covers his ass with a “perhaps,” and then further armor-plates himself with a “begin to,” as if even that act of considering is an effort he’s not completely sure he’s willing to undertake), though it’s perfectly obvious that he knows exactly what’s going on; then, seeing as the responsibility for an eventual separation (which is after all the reptile’s real objective) is not a burden he’s willing to bear entirely on his own, he cunningly attempts to farm out half of it to the other party in the doomed relationship, venturing so far as to invite her to underwrite a metaphorical protocol of understanding, an emotional briefing intended to explore a problem that in reality he knows exactly how to resolve (which is to say, by dumping the girl while making her believe that this separation is something they actually entered into by common accord).
    In other words, despicable stuff.
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    Now let’s try writing the exact same thing (or to be more precise