Joan Best wrote: > Bob, > > To put it more succinctly: Legal terms tend to persist in legal > documents long after the word is no part of the common vocabulary > AND long after the reason for using the term has lost its legal > validity. > > Black's Legal Dictionary includes archaic terms such as > intermarriage. I believe that Black's said, in 1951, that it was > "sometimes used" because it was a term that was nearing the end of > the following-out-of-usage process and was not "always used" or > "often used". It was "often used" in the time period inquired about > [1800-1860] and would have had a strict legal meaning, and therefore > "always used" with a precise legal meaning probably 200 years before > that. This is my [pretty well] educated guess, to answer another of > your questions. And by the way, "inter" is Latin, a demonstration > of one of the marvels of our language: we can easily combine words > of entirely different origins and create new meanings, one of the > great benefits, in the past, of studying Latin. It is true that our modern English has many Latin (among others) roots , but many thanks for your further expansion & elucidation on this whole matter. quod erat demonstrandum<g> > "Joan Best" <joanbest@earthlink.net> Bob [ OK, let's not have any further "intermarriage" posts unless someone has some startling new information on the subject. (: - Mod ]