What is POFP?

Why do lawyers refer to long documents as briefs and
18-year olds as infants? Why do they use so much Latin when so few of their
clients are Ancient Romans? Is it a conspiracy?


Party of the First Part has the answers! Check out the Website for the
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columns; tips on writing legal documents in plain English; and more!



Saturday, September 8, 2007

Word of the Week

Prurient Interest

This phrase is part of the current legal test for obscenity: material is said to be obscene if it "appeals to a prurient interest." A prurient interest is defined as "an unacceptable interest in sex." Unacceptable to whom?, one might ask. The answer is: to the judge or jury in a particular case. Oh well, the word comes from the Latin purire, meaning "to itch," and thus has the sense of an itching or burning desire.

Ever since the sub-prime debacle, the Prurient Interest rate has gone up to almost 5 percent.

2 comments:

Adam Freedman said...

Apologies to all my real readers - any advice on getting rid of comments like this? If I get more spam comments like this, I may have to require "comment moderation" which will delay the posting of comments. Sorry!!

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