OT: Witnesseth, was TSCC license

[Michael J. Lew]

At 12:43 AM -0500 10/3/04, use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com wrote:
>  > I was set up for a laugh by the heading of the non-capitalised text,
>>  "WITNESSETH". It's not in either of my dictionaries, and
>>  www.dictionary.com has no entries. Good fun, but it leads to some
>>  interesting questions. If a legal document contains a made-up word
>>  without definition can it have a legal meaning?
>
>Michael, "witnesseth" it's not a made-up word, it's old English for
>"witnesses" (which is why it's not in dictionary.com). Goes along with
>"thou", "thine", "doeth", "heareth, "seeth", etc.
>
>Just FYI,

Well, over lunch I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary (you 
know, the _BIG_ one) at the staff club. "Witnesseth" is not there per 
se, but "-eth" is there as a general appendage for forcing a verb 
into the second person future perfect ...well, I don't remember 
exactly, maybe it was pluperfect or slightly imperfect! I interpreted 
"witnesseth:" to mean both "You will be attesting to the following" 
and "Give up hope all who read past this point" ;-)

-- 
Michael J. Lew

Senior Lecturer
Department of Pharmacology
The University of Melbourne
Parkville 3010
Victoria
Australia

Phone +613 8344 8304

**
New email address: michaell at unimelb.edu.au
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