Portmanteau Words

A linguistic oddity that pervades the English language far more than many realize is the portmanteau word. Portmanteau words are “blend” words that are derived by combining sections of two or more separate words. Some famous examples include the “nonsense” words in Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky”, such as “slithy” (compounded of slimy and lithe).

A list of more common portmanteau words that you may never have realized are such appears at this portmanteau words site.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Constitutional Sources Project

The Constitutional Sources Project is a collection of letters, speeches and journals of our nation's founders. The goal is to create and maintain the first, free, fully- indexed, comprehensive online library of constitutional sources. The collections include:

Constitutional Precedents
The United States Constitution
James Madison's Notes of the Constitutional Convention
The Federalist Papers
Anti-Federalist and Pro-Federalist Papers
State Ratification Debates
Bill of Rights Legislative History
State Constitution and Charters
The Papers of George Washington
Documents by Author

Truly a treasure trove and the project is still adding documents.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

The Onion on Convoluted Legal Wranglings

There was a funny article in The Onion last week about Mets third baseman David Wright appealing a check swing call to the Supreme Court. It is funny because umpires and judges have some things in common (as PrawfsBlawg points out, Chief Justice Roberts has analogized his Court to a crew of umpires), because spending years waiting for a ball-strike call exemplifies how out of sync the timing of our courts can be with real life, because a check swing involves the sort of subjective test courts like to examine at length, and because it quotes John Kruk explaining originalist interpretation.

However, although the article says that the fake case had a "convoluted" procedural history, it involved no remands, interlocutory appeals, etc. In fact, it somehow managed to skip multiple levels of the state and federal courts--just look at the chart below. (Of course, National League umpires working at Shea are not actually a court of first instance in the New York State Unified Court System.)


[Courts written in gray were skipped.]








Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

HealthMap

The students around me are absorbed in studying for the bar exam, so it's a good time to prowl the Web for cool sites making news. If you haven't seen HealthMap yet, take a look when you have a chance. HealthMap tracks the latest infectious disease outbreaks throughout the world by gathering and filtering masses of information from news and other web sites, including health organization and government sources. Using Google Maps, it creates a real-time graphical presentation that helps predict and monitor infectious diseases, from the flu to salmonella and plague, sometimes before official agencies have announced a problem. Displaying information by disease, by geographic region, and by level of urgency, with news feeds and alerts, HealthMap is fascinating to explore. For more about HealthMap, I recommend an article in Discovery Channel's Discovery News (Eric Bland, "Web-Crawling Program ID's Disease Outbreaks," July 18, 2008).



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Quick Study break

For those studying hard for the bar exam and needing a quick break, try Hangman . It has topics like American Presidents, cartoon heroes and Reasons to Stay Inside on a Sunny Day. I just played a quick 2 minute game and had a bit of fun.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Official U.S. Time

Anyone (especially busy and time-conscious students who are studying for next week’s New York State Bar Examination) who would like to set his or her timepieces to the official U.S. time will find the solution here.

Just click your time zone on the map. The online clock is generally accurate to within 0.2 - 0.4 seconds.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Multijurisdictional Practice

Attorney multijurisdictional practice is an increasingly important topic for attorneys. Thus, it is essential to be aware of topics such as, admission by motion, reciprocity, and pro hac vice admission. The web page of the ABA's Commission on Multijurisdictional Practice is a great place to start. The page includes ABA reports, recommendations and charts containing information on state rules. It is a very useful site!


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Westlaw and Lexis Directories

Law students often have trouble transitioning from the "free" (flat-rate) Westlaw and Lexis access they receive in law school to using these systems at firms where charges must be justified and clients don't like to see large bills for online research.

A common problem clerks and new attorneys who use these systems have is spending too much time looking for the right database (this can be especially costly if your firm is paying for access by the minute), and searching in the wrong database before finding the right one (assuming there is a right one).

Both Westlaw and Lexis offer free searchable directories of their databases, which can help you reduce your searching costs by finding the right database before you've even entered your ID or password.

They are:

Westlaw

Lexis

Of course, over-reliance on Westlaw and Lexis is a problem too, when so much legal information is available online for free.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

PolicyArchive Launched

PolicyArchive, billed as the "nation's first free, comprehensive, online archive of public policy research," became available yesterday. With over 12,000 policy documents from over 220 think tanks, PolicyArchive hopes to become the world's largest online repository of public policy research, reaching up to 20,000 documents by the end of 2008. The product of a partnership between the nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies and the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis University Library, Policy Archive brings together documents from a wide array of respected policy research institutes and government sources, such the Aspen Institute, RAND, the Cato Institute, the Congressional Research Service, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Arranged by topic, such as health, energy, and justice, the reports and other documents are also keyword searchable and browseable by author, funder, and publisher. PolicyArchive is a great new resource for law students and faculty.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Legal Anagrams

As many of you know, an anagram is a word whose letters may be rearranged to form another word. For instance, “time” may become “item”, with its letters suitably rearranged. Here are some amusing anagrams created from the phrase “the legal profession”, courtesy of the Anagram Genius site:

*Large if not hopeless

*Posh liars on fee gelt

*Profile those angles

* Pleasing fools there

*Oops! All-nighter fees.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat