Wednesday, November 01, 2006

lost in interpretation

A line from my Torts casebook:

"In this case the plaintiff had left his ass fettered in the road eating grass." Davies v. Mann, 10 M. & W. 546, 152 Eng. Rep. 588 (Exch. 1842)

My initial thoughts after reading that line: Why would the plaintiff tie his butt to the ground to eat grass? Couldn't he just sit and eat the grass? Why is he even eating grass on the side of the road? Were they that poor in England back then? I still don't understand why he felt the need to tie his butt to the ground....how do you tie your butt to the ground?

Upon reading the next sentence did I realize that "ass" meant "donkey" and not the plaintiff's butt, which totally makes so much more sense.

It's been a long day...

1 comment:

Katie Woods said...

You really thought that... Ha! You still must be exhausted from the beating you took in badminton yesterday! :) Just kidding. I bet you're not the only one who thought that!