A recent commenter on Peter Rozovsky's Detectives Beyond Borders mentioned that we semi-educated types often use the term per se incorrectly, attempting to sound more high-falutin' than we really are. Having just used the term myself in some post within the 24 hours preceding this, I was perhaps more sensitive than I might have been normally to this criticism--enough so that I feel a little frozen in even attempting to think of a sentence that I would use it in. So let me take a more lighthearted approach to this and give an 'example' of a way I might use the term in a sentence.
"It wasn't a crime, per se--my hand just happened to slip into her wallet as I was helping her across the street."
I am not a hundred percent sure that this is the way I do use it, but it's a starting point. I guess in my mind, per se means, in actuality, or as strictly or legalistically defined, or even more informally, 'as you might ordinarily define it yourself'.
So what's the root of this phrase? I'm guessing Latin. Legalistic Latin is the way I'm betting it's come down to us. Time to take a look...
per se: Latin for 'of, in or by itself, or oneself'. Intrinsically. Essentially.
So I think my sentence above is a little bit off, as I somehow felt it was. A better sentence might be "The fact that my hand slipped into her wallet as I was helping her across the street wasn't a crime per se--it was bringing it out again with that fifty and taking off down the street that put me on the wrong side of the law."
Now I'm curious about common misuses of the word. How do people most typically make mistakes with it?
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I have not heard it misused that much, but I did once have a colleague who drove me nuts by using it as a kind of throat-clearing device, a higher-falutin' version of y'know or if you will.
ReplyDeleteIf it's misued, I expect that people it to mean "exactly" when it really means "essentially" or "in itself."
American libel law distinguishes between libel per quod, which is an accusation that can be libelous depending on the facts of the case, and libel per se, a statement libelous without having to prove that the subject of the statment suffered any particular damage because of it. False accusations that the subject committed a crime or had a sexually transmitted disease fall into that category, if I recall correctly from my old journalism law course.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the comment, Peter. One of the advantages of doing this as a blog rather than just some sort of offline journal is that due to the comments, I often learn a lot more than I would actually think to ask.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the disadvantage is that I constantly risk humiliation on a potentially global scale. Sooner or later, I am going to post about something that everyone else in the world already understands except me. Alack the day.
Oh, I don't know. The posts are too entertaining to be humiliating in a massive scale. And it does my heart good to see that someone out there thinks about such matters.
ReplyDeleteOh, I expect it will be some sports knowledge that will be a blatent enough gaffe to lose even your sympathy, Peter. Don't underestimate the depths of my ignorance in certain subjects beloved by all.
ReplyDeleteWe all have gaps in our knowledge. You will always likely know more than I will about, oh, slugs.
ReplyDeleteBut not as much as I should, having lived among them, lo, these many years.
ReplyDeleteWe're talking more specifically about banana slugs for anyone else who happens to drop in here.
OK, OK, they're kind of cute in a repellant sort of way.
ReplyDeleteIt is also frequently misspelled.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I've seen 'per say' more than once.
Sweet,tender,slimy wiggling slugs.
They're adorable.
Marco, I think the alternate (i.e., wrong)spelling accounts for a lot of the misuse, now you mention it. I'd guess a lot of people think 'per say' means something like "as I say it" or something like that.
ReplyDeleteBanana slugs are indeed adorable, but you are only required to feel that way if you live within the Santa Cruz county line. Marco may be an exception, and as you can see, Peter, he is pretty much bound to know a whole lot more about slugs, all kinds of slugs, than I can ever hope to.
Not that I actually do hope to...
"Sweet,tender,slimy wiggling slugs."
ReplyDeleteThey're not adorable, but that line is poetry, like something out of Emily Dickinson. As long as your muse speaks to you, it doesn;t matter what she looks like.
Beauty is apparently indeed in the eye of the beholder.
ReplyDeleteWhat can I tell you? I don't much care for snails either, at least not their heads.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I am not as enamored of slimy/creepy/crawly things as Marco is, but when you see them making their humble way across the forest floor, you do kind of tend to think 'adorable'. But also, 'what in the hell is the evolutionary point of bright banana yellow in a redwood forest?'
ReplyDeleteI think one of the reasons the banana slug is the mascot of UCSC is not just that it lowers the bar on any expectations anyone might have about the athletic teams, but also that when you first come to that campus, you definitely find the whole situation incredible. How can you be going to school in a redwood forest with a view of the Pacific Ocean? (And how are you going to get any work done?) It sort of doesn't make sense in terms of anything you've ever learned about school. And then you happen upon this bizarre, brightly yellow slimy creature in an environment that doesn't really seem designed for it, though of course it must be, and it makes perfect sense of the whole 'I have now landed on a different planet' experience.
I have always wanted to see rewoods and giant sequoias!
ReplyDelete"'what in the hell is the evolutionary point of bright banana yellow in a redwood forest?'"
I accept that evolution works in mysterious ways.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Criminy, someone in the cafe where I am typing this just left a bright yellow banana on the counter. I don't need ot tell you what it reminded me of.
ReplyDeleteOh dear. I hope you didn't let on to the others in the cafe--it might be kind of hard to explain. Although I suppose you could always just google up the reason on your computer and show them.
ReplyDeleteHalf of them would shriek and half of them would probably immediately start twittering banana slug haiku.
Hope this doesn't put you right off bananas.
I did tell the banana woman why her fruit had given me a start. I looked for the cute banana slug photo you had posted, but all I found was the loathsome one of three slugs. I decided not to show that to her.
ReplyDeleteI expect that one of the more 'loathsome' images would have been the only way to actually explain it, but I can see why you might have decided against it, what with everyone sitting around eating and drinking and all.
ReplyDeleteThe three repellant creatures would also not have demonstrated why the banana on the counter (henceforth to be referred to as "the counter-banana") attracted my attention. The bright yellow b.s. in your other photo, on the other hand, looked astonishgly like the banana, as if either the fruit or the slug was trying to protect itself by looking like the other.
ReplyDeleteV-word: nonsing
Peter - I'm pretty sure you're dead on regarding per quod v. per se in the legal context. I didn't study libel too in-depth, but I did take a class in anti-trust law. A per se scenario was, as you said, illegal without requiring any further evidence or even demonstrating some type of intent.
ReplyDeleteBrian,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. It becomes clear that if I want a lot of feedback here, I should confess my ignorance of Latin, especially Latin legal terminology, more often. Luckily for me that's pretty much all Latin legal terms.
As for banana slugs, Peter, well, we have these postcards with several pictures of them at the bookstore and I have to say that since this discussion they have sort of leapt out of the background and into the foreground of my vision. It's as if the creatures actually want to call attention to themselves. Maybe this is part of their evolutionary strategy, but I sure can't think why...
"We feel it's time for slugs to get their side of the story out, to counter the negative stereotypes," said a spokeswoman for the campaign. "Sluggish -- it's the new dynamic."
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I think you may have missed your calling, Peter. You should have gone into advertising.
ReplyDeleteIf I could make up my own products, I'd do well in that field.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMatthew, although you deleted your example, it came up on my email and was quite apropos.
ReplyDelete