In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the Eaglet said, “I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” Sharp L J said in Stocker v Stocker in the Court of Appeal, [2018] EWCA Civ 170: “The use of dictionaries does not form part of the process of determining the meaning of words.” This echoes Humpty Dumpty in “Alice Through the Looking Glass”; “‘when I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less’”.
“He tried to strangle me” does not mean “he tried to kill me” to the “ordinary reasonable reader” on Facebook, ruled the Supreme Court, affirming Sharp L J’s approach. When looking to ascertain the meaning of words we should now rely on the Humpty Dumpty approach rather than the dictionary definition.
The position is somewhat different in the United Arab Emirates, The Times reports, “A British woman faces two years in jail and a £50,000 fine under Dubai’s cybercrime laws after calling her former husband’s new wife a “horse” on Facebook.”
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the Eaglet said, “I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” Sharp L J said in Stocker v Stocker in the Court of Appeal, [2018] EWCA Civ 170: “The use of dictionaries does not form part of the process of determining the meaning of words.” This echoes Humpty Dumpty in “Alice Through the Looking Glass”; “‘when I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less’”.
“He tried to strangle me” does not mean “he tried to kill me” to the “ordinary reasonable reader” on Facebook, ruled the Supreme Court, affirming Sharp L J’s approach. When looking to ascertain the meaning of words we should now rely on the Humpty Dumpty approach rather than the dictionary definition.
The position is somewhat different in the United Arab Emirates, The Times reports, “A British woman faces two years in jail and a £50,000 fine under Dubai’s cybercrime laws after calling her former husband’s new wife a “horse” on Facebook.”
