Reviewed by Mark J. Elson, University of Virginia

This book is an etymological dictionary of sorts, comprising seventy-seven entries (1–294), followed by notes (295–338) and an index (339–48). The phrase ‘familiar legal expressions’ in the title will surely mislead some prospective readers, who will assume it refers to legal terms in the conventional sense, which occur with some frequency in everyday life and are accompanied by a discussion of their meaning and origin. Few, if any, would dispute the existence of such terms (e.g. amicus curiae, battery, civil suit, class action suit, de facto, felony, habeas corpus, larceny, manslaughter, plea bargain, restraining order, subpoena, summons). For many, such terms will fit the authors’ definition of familiar legal expressions as ‘words and phrases that have a particular connection with law or are used in talking about law’(ix). However, the authors have reserved this definition for terms such as abuse excuse, affirmative action, attorney general, billable hour, blackmail, blood money, day in court, electoral college, indict a ham sandwich, kangaroo court, make a federal case of, politically correct, posse, rap, read the riot act, the whole truth, and many others. We do find terms of the more technical type, but only a few, including attorney (versus lawyer), corpus delicti, grand jury, hearsay, and testify. We also find terms that will not be familiar to all, perhaps most, readers, such as hornbook law and Comstockery.

My clarification of the contents of this book should not be mistaken for criticism. Beyond its potentially misleading title, it is a scholarly work treating in a serious and competent fashion a sub-component of the lexicon of American popular culture. The care and expertise brought to the task are reflected in the length and detail of the entries. The authors offer interesting and informative historical discussion of the terms they have chosen, accompanied by notes that include references to many sources, legal and otherwise. They themselves provide the best description of their work: ‘The accounts in this book…collectively constitute a picture window on American cultural history’ (xi). It is the emphasis on American cultural history in the form of relevant jokes, urban legends, and folk etymologies culled from literature, newspapers, and scholarly writing, that unites the entries and serves as the backdrop against which they are treated. Although the authors did not intend the book to be used as such, it might well serve pedagogically as a useful point of departure, in conjunction with an inventory of legal terms in the more usual sense, for a consideration of specialized lexicon in American English, and, more generally, of semantic change as well as the linguistic and socio-linguistic factors which are relevant to the stability of lexicon over time. The fact that the authors are not offering their work in that capacity, but only as a reference, enhances its pedagogical value because the terms are not considered within a theoretical framework or as part of a system. They would, therefore, as a database, require students not merely to read them as entries in a dictionary, but to interact with them analytically.