r/Ask_Lawyers 12.07.2024 post by reddituser bettyx1138:
Why do lawyers prefer to be called attorneys?
NAL, I work amongst them. Is there a difference between the terms lawyer and attorney?
Imho it’s shorter to say a two syllable word than three syllables and it’s less letters to write 🤷🏼♀️ am I insulting lawyers/attorneys by calling them lawyers?
comment 12.07.2024 by AliMcGraw:
"Attorney" is a Norman French word, while "lawyer" is an English word (coming from Middle English), and the fact is that in English-language law, Norman French remained THE language of the law until the mid-1700s. In 1362 Parliament passed a law that all legal proceedings should be in English because "nobody in this country knows French" ... but the law was written in French and passed in French. Case law decisions and reports remained in French until almost 1700, and it wasn't until 1732 that Parliament successfully mandated that legal cases proceed in English rather than Norman French and pidgin Latin.
Even today, when Parliament sends legislation from one house to the other, or from the two houses to the king, the sending order (just a few words) remains in Norman French: Charles signs laws "Le Roy le veult" (the king wills it) as his predecessors have since 1066. If the Lords send a bill to the Commons, they send it with the endorsement/order: "soit baillé aux communes" -- "send the bill to the commons."
In English we also have what are called "legal doublets," where we name a crime or common procedure by both its "official" Norman French name and its "vernacular" English name, since everyone holding court and serving as lawyers after 1066 would have been speaking French, but 99% of the criminals could have been speaking English. So we have "Breaking (english) and Entering (french)"; "Will (english) and Testament (french)"; "Goods (E) and Chattels (F)"; "Give (E) and Grant (F)" and so on and so forth. (We get so addicted to these that we start making legal doublets in English-English or French-French, because doublets is how lawyers talk, so to sound more lawyery we say things like "aid and abet" (both French) or "to have and to hold" (both English). Here, enjoy a bunch!)
ANYWAY, my point here is, the more Norman French terms you use, the more lawyerly (and fancier!) you sound. So being an "attorney-at-law" (Norman French) is inherently more impressive than being a "lawyer" (English, by way of the Danes).
So basically, blame William the Conquerer and the 1,000 years of Anglo-Norman French inflicted upon us by his invasion and imported into other Common-law systems via colonization.
To me, as an attorney who deals with a lot of EU law, one of the funniest parts of this is that the dominance of English as a world trade language over the last 75 years means that a bunch of French loanwords forced into English in 1066 and turned into legal terms of art are now popping back out in EU legislation except the romance-language speakers who "own" those words are retaking them and remaking them into words that DO NOT FUNCTION IN ENGLISH, except they KIND-OF work in romance languages because we originally stole them from French. Like "Planification" (the process of planning), "Comitology" (having to do with committees), and "Actorness" (the quality of being a party taking an action). Prior to Brexit, a bunch of British language nerds were fighting a rearguard action to defend English against being recolonized by EU romance languages (with limited success) but it turns out the Irish just don't care that much and the battle is now being lost, with dozens of very bizarre constructions entering English via EU English. Here's a 2023 guide with a bunch of strange examples. I literally keep a live list on my computer of EU English words that don't mean real English things, so I don't accidentally misinterpret.
