FW: A.Word.A.Day--Philadelphia lawyer

[The Great Quail]

Of tangential M&D interest:


------ Forwarded Message
From: Wordsmith <wsmith at wordsmith.org>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 02:05:06 -0500
To: linguaphile at wordsmith.org
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--Philadelphia lawyer

Philadelphia lawyer (fil-uh-DEL-fee-uh LOI-yuhr) noun

   A shrewd lawyer, one who is adept at exploiting legal technicalities.

[From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.]

  "Then Willie Lee nailed me those many years ago. With a woman's way she
   said to Bob, `Bob, this man's been here three days and he's complimented
   my cooking more than you have in thirty years of marriage.'
  "A death pall lay over the burdened table. Willie Lee had pierced both of
   us with two horns of the same bull. I gulped and floundered -- helpless
   to assist my wounded friend -- but Bob never missed a spoonful as he
said,
   `I've been too busy eatin'.'
  "No Philadelphia lawyer ever saved (himself and) the condemned with so few
   words, so coolly and ably stated. I was in Bob's debt and learned that
   moment to keep my compliments to a peck and not a bushel."
   Bill Tarrant, Hunting the Russian Boar, Field & Stream (Los Angeles),
   Apr 1998.

The term Philadelphia lawyer can have either positive or negative
connotations depending on whether it's being applied to a lawyer who's for
or against us. The term can also be applied to a person, not necessarily a
lawyer, who is good at manipulating and obfuscating matters. The most famous
Philadelphia lawyer was Andrew Hamilton who defended John Peter Zenger,
printer and publisher of the New York Weekly Journal, in a 1735 libel case
that set the precedent for free speech in America. Here are the fascinating
details of this landmark case:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/zenger.html

Discover more words derived from place names in AWAD this week.

-Anu
 anu at wordsmith.org

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............................................................................
No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist. -Ludwig Van Beethoven,
composer (1770-1827)

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Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/philadelphia_lawyer.wav
http://wordsmith.org/words/philadelphia_lawyer.ram

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