Defendants' assiduous counsel testified that he had counted the words of the testimony and found same to be 22,374, for which he says only 15¢ per one hundred words should have been charged, or $32.56, a difference of $17.44; and that the record of the trial of the first rule ..., for which the reporter charged $25.00, there are by count by him only 5,975 words, which, charged at 15¢ per hundred, would amount to $8.96, a difference of $16.04.  On this score, defendants contend that excessive costs to the amount of $26.44 have been charged.

Louisiana Revised Statute 13:4533 gives the trial court discretion in whether or not to feed the civil jury with the verbiage "... and all other costs allowed by the court ...."

Meyers v. Basso, 381 So.2d 843, 846 (La. App. 1 Cir. 1980).

By the phrase "and all other costs allowed by the court ...," La. R.S. 13:4533 gives the trial court discretion in whether to feed the civil jury.

You're To Kill a Mockingbird!
by Harper Lee
Perceived as a revolutionary and groundbreaking person, you have changed the minds of many people. While questioning the authority around you, you've also taken a significant amount of flack. But you've had the admirable guts to persevere. There's a weird guy in the neighborhood using dubious means to protect you, but you're pretty sure it's worth it in the end. In the end, it remains unclear to you whether finches and mockingbirds get along in real life.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

We are part of the whole which we call the universe, but it is an optical delusion of our mind that we think we are separate. This separateness is like a prison for us. Our job is to widen the circle of compassion so we feel connected to all people and all situations.

Albert Einstein

The Dig came with a link to an essay by Fyodor Dostoevsky, which also hit home.  Here's an excerpt:

 [It is] the isolation that prevails everywhere—above all in our age—yet has not fully developed; it has not reached its limit. For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but in self-destruction, for instead of self-realization he ends by arriving at complete solitude.

• A few weeks ago, Bill Cosby made news by referring to some uneducated people as "knuckleheads."  Said Bill, "Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads...." 
• Last week, a New Orleans Saints rookie ended his contract holdout because he worried that people might think him a knucklehead.
• Last month, a columnist in Peoria asks the rhetorical question, "What knucklehead first came up with the wild idea of former Bears coach Mike Ditka serving in a public post?"
• A quick Google News search for knucklehead turned up 55 recent stories containing the word.

Knucklehead is a wonderful, colorful metaphor.  But it's hard to find in a dictionary.  The on-line OED gives it short shrift, hiding it in the definition of knuckle.  Lucky for us, Word Detective comes to the rescue:

"[K]nucklehead," meaning a stupid or slow-witted person, is classic US slang dating back to the period of World War II.  Apparently "knucklehead" arose as a variant of "bonehead," meaning that a stupid person has a thick skull impervious to listening or learning.  (The word "knuckle," meaning the end of a bone at a joint, itself comes from a Germanic root meaning "little bone.")  There's some evidence that "knucklehead" was originally military slang.

That, my friends, is a great description of knucklehead.  Not just stupid, but a particular kind of stupid -- a hard-headed, "shut up I know what I'm doing" stupidity.  You can imagine the knowledge trying to get into the brain, only to bounce off of the thick bony skull.  Knucklehead conveys a lot of meaning, a lot of imagery, in just three syllables.  We don't need more knuckleheads, but we need more words like knucklehead.

On August 28, 1991, the State of Louisiana, through the Department of Social Services, on behalf of Mrs. Harden's adoptive son, plaintiff Eric Harden, filed suit against Southern Baptist Hospital.

On August 28, 1991, the State of Louisiana, through the Department of Social Services, filed suit on behalf of Mrs. Harden's adoptive son, Eric Harden, against Southern Baptist Hospital.

On August 28, 1991, the State of Louisiana, through the Department of Social Services, filed suit against Southern Baptist Hospital.  The State sued on behalf of Mrs. Harden's adoptive son, Eric Harden.

Prince doesn't like funny painted men with rubber noses and big feet, so word is he wouldn't play on the Superdome stage last month unless Ronald McDonald hit the road first.  What Prince wants, Prince gets.

WordNet describes itself as follows:

WordNet® is an online lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym sets.

WordNet was developed by the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton University under the direction of Professor George A. Miller (Principal Investigator).

Double-Tongued Word Wrester records words as they enter and leave the English language. It focuses upon slang, jargon, and other niche categories which include new, foreign, hybrid, archaic, obsolete, and rare words. Special attention is paid to the lending and borrowing of words between the various Englishes and other languages, even where a word is not a fully naturalized citizen in its new language.

Lawyer’s often misuse the instant as a pompous substitute for this or the. We’ve all seen drivel like “the instant motion” and “the instant case.” I’ve even seen “the instant accident,” and the writer did not mean an accident that happened instantaneously. I’ve had instant coffee and instant oatmeal for breakfast, but I’ve never been able to whip up an instant motion. And what is the opposite of an instant accident — an accident that take half an hour to occur?

 

Instead of misusing instant like this, replace it with this or the, and improve your writing instantly: “this motion,” “this case,” “the accident.”

I been running trying to get hung up in my mind
Got to give myself a good talking-to this time
Just need a little brain salad surgery
Got to cure this insecurity

In everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and endure.  The joy of battle comes after the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of learning him; the glow of the sea-bather comes after the icy shock of the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of the honeymoon.