# Ambiguous sentence in a court desicion **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 14, 2017, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470 "2017-04-14T21:17:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Sheikh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Sheikh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Sheikh)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/1 "2017-04-14T21:17:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Bearing in mind the Claimant / Counter-Respondent’s allegation that it was informed that the Respondent I’s contract with Club F would have ended in February 2013, the Chamber wished to highlight that whereas art. 18 par. 3 of the Regulations reads that a professional shall only be free to conclude a contract with another club if his contract with his present club has expired or is due to expire within six months, **said** particular provision may only be seen as a right for the player and may by no means be understood as an exoneration for a potential club from its duty of care consisting of contacting in writing a player’s current club before entering into contractual negotiations with a player. My question is regarding the verb _said_ (in bold). Who said that? Was it the Chamber or the Regulations or other party? Or was the sentence badly-written as I believe? Source: ll. no: 20 [here](http://resources.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/02/56/72/90/1114239_english.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/2 "2017-04-14T21:21:09Z")
“Said” in this case is being used in the following way: Claus 15 is totes awesome sauce. Said clause gives players wicked awesome rights. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/3 "2017-04-14T21:22:26Z")
Right. “Said” = “that” ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/4 "2017-04-14T21:25:08Z")
Right; it’s not a verb. It’s an adjective meaning “mentioned before” or “aforementioned”. In this case, “said provision” means the provision just outlined: “a professional shall only be free to conclude a contract with another club if his contract with his present club has expired or is due to expire within six months”. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Sheikh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Sheikh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Sheikh)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/5 "2017-04-14T21:26:32Z")
Hahaha thanks. Wish I was a wicked player. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Sheikh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Sheikh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Sheikh)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/6 "2017-04-14T21:27:43Z")
Can I now delete the thread for obvious reasons? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/7 "2017-04-14T21:48:06Z")
Said request denied. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/8 "2017-04-14T23:04:55Z")
Although there was no problem here, legal writers are very careful in the way they construct their sentences. Any slip or ambiguity could have huge consequences, as recently in [this case](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/oxford-comma-lawsuit.html?_r=2) when the lack of a comma caused one party in the dispute to have to pay out millions in extra overtime payments. That’s why it bugs me when the Plain English crowd complain about the complexity of language used in the law. It’s there for a very good reason. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/9 "2017-04-14T23:39:02Z")
> [@The\_Sheikh](#): > > Can I now delete the thread for obvious reasons? We don’t delete threads here. Even for obvious reasons. 🙂 Seriously, it’s not that bad of a thread. Don’t let it bother you. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/10 "2017-04-15T12:35:38Z")
> [@The\_Sheikh](#): > > My question is regarding the verb _said_ (in bold). Who said that? Was it the Chamber or the Regulations or other party? Or was the sentence badly-written as I believe? > > Source: ll. no: 20 [here](http://resources.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/02/56/72/90/1114239_english.pdf) “The said X” , or similar form where X is a noun. “said X” means “the last such X referred to here”. here being the same paragraph, or the whole chapter… No hard rule on that, but style guides would say that it should be recent…eg in same paragraph Whats ambiguous is a word like “it” or “the previous X” , or " the subject X", because it might be the subject of the article but not the subject of the paragraph. So “said X” refers to the last X, not neccessarily the most important subject . ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ambiguous-sentence-in-a-court-desicion/784470/11 "2017-04-15T12:59:36Z")
Basically, to re-arrange - Said provision - Regs Art 18 Par 3 “player … within 6 months of contract end can negotiate with other clubs” only applies to player, not to “other club”. I.e. if player is still under contract, even if less than 6 months to go, any club talking to him should clear it with his current contract holder club. As others point out, this is common legalese, which I presume this use of “said” is a remnant of old English usage. Think of it as less formal but similar to “aforementioned”…