Saturday, March 3, 2007

Entreat

Entreat (DD definition link)

Ordinarily, I'd have just given this word a miss as being too easy, but then I took a look at the etymology and it provoked me as to the comparison with "to move". In law, we speak of "moving the Court" to rule in our favor, which one would think is comparable to "entreating the Court", however, entreat derives from the Latin "to draw, pull or drag out", whereas move derives from Latin "to motivate or set in motion" and "to push". Therefore, the manner in which the response is elicited in different. Entreat implies that it will be hard to pull out, like wheedling, and move, that you will simply push someone in the direction. Both may still have inherent difficulties in getting the response since in law, you can have multiple parties "pushing" the judge in different directions, but there is this curious distinction.

Still, I move the Court to rule in my favor, just as I move an audience to response to my performance, but I entreat small children to stop squirming in the movie theatre or Plaintiff's counsel not to file stupid and wasteful motions.

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