Thursday, August 26, 2004

The best defense ...

I read this sentence in a story last week. See what's wrong with it?
Her defense lawyer did not return a call for comment.
"Defense lawyer" is redundant here.

Her lawyer is the defense lawyer; he's in charge of her defense. But she doesn't have a prosecutorial lawyer. That's the other side's job.

You can simply write "her lawyer." There will be no confusion.

2 Comments:

At 4:37 PM, August 26, 2004, Blogger Bill said...

Better yet, "her attorney." People love to use that word so much, they might as well get it out of their systems on those occasions when it's correct.

 
At 7:48 PM, August 26, 2004, Blogger Nicole said...

Or they could use "lawyer" all the time, which is hardly ever wrong ...

 

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