More U's: Legal and Obscure

We have a strikingly large collection of legal terms beginning with "u." Some of these words are derived from Roman law (the civil sytem), and so they don't enter into our system or vocabulary, but they are "live" concepts in European law. Among these are usucaption, usufructuary, and uti possidetis. Two that are from our law are ultra vires and uberrima fides. Ultra vires is a commonplace in corporation law, and it points to action taken by the board of directors or the officers that exceeds their powers. It is, literally, "beyond the powers." Usucaption is the acquisition of the title or right to property by the uninterrupted and undisputed possession of it for a certain term prescribed by law. In our common law tradition this is called "adverse possession," but the Latin words (usus and capere) stress both the seizure and the use of something. A usufructuary someone or something relating to "usufruct." Thanks. A usufruct is, literally, the "use" and "enjoyment" of a property. So it is the right of enjoying all the advantages derivable from the use of something which belongs to another--without, however, wasting the thing. The right of uti possidetis, literally rendered "that you may possess," is an action in civil law by which a person is protected in the possession of the property where s/he resides. In international law it is the basis or principle of a treaty leaving belligerent parties in possession of what they have acquired by their arms during the war. Finally, the phrase uberrima fides (the utmost good faith) is used in insurance law or, more precisely, reinsurance law, to describe the duty of the the insurer to the reinsurer. In such a relationship, all the particulars of one's insurance have to be disclosed to the reinsurer because the reinsurer is not in a position to assess all the policies and particulars of the insurer's business. But this is a phrase that seemingly would be useful outside of the context of insurance law. Maybe it would be a practical way of conducting one's business--according to the standards of uberrima fides.

Well, before returning to some other "u's," I couldn't help noticing in the vicinity of all these words the term ustulation. Behind it stands the Latin "ustulare" a diminutive of "urere," which means "to burn." Thus, ustulation is the act of burning. But, because the Apostle Paul in I Cor. 7:9 had the foresight to use a phrase which would enter into every commentator's mental furniture ("it is better to marry than to burn"), so ustulation entered into the English language. Jeremy Taylor, the so-called Shakespearean divine of the 17th century could say, "It is not certain that they took the better part when they chose ustulation before marriage, expressly against the apostle."

Other "U" Words

Something unasinous is something "agreeing in stupidity." The word is a humorous one, derived from Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century, and was formed to reflect "unanimous." One has "de-Doctors of Ministry, unasinous colleagues, etc." Two terms that have a classical origin are ultracrepidarian and utricide. The former is well described by Michael Quinion in his World Wide Words post, and I will quote it here.

"Ultracrepidarian comes from a classical allusion. The Latin writer Pliny recorded that Apelles, the famous Greek painter who was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, would put his pictures where the public could see them and then stand out of sight so he could listen to their comments. A shoemaker once faulted the painter for a sandal with one loop too few, which Apelles corrected. The shoemaker, emboldened by this acceptance of his views, then criticised the subject’s leg. To this Apelles is reported as replying (no doubt with expletives deleted) that the shoemaker should not judge beyond his sandals, in other words that critics should only comment on matters they know something about. In modern English, we might say “the cobbler should stick to his last”, a proverb that comes from the same incident. (A last is a shoemaker’s pattern, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning to follow a track, hence footstep.)"

The crepida is a sandle or the sole of a shoe. Thus, a shoemaker, and by extension, each one of us shouldn't "go beyond the sole," i.e., try to make expert judgments in areas that are beyond our ken.

The word utricide appears in the online Phrontistery and in the OED, and so I thought I would take a look at it. The only definition is not very helpful: "one who stabs an inflated vessel or skin." Why would anyone go around doing that? Well, the words behind "utricide" are uter, a leather bag, and "cide, "which means to kill." I can understand the word uxoricide, to kill a wife, even if that thought never occurred to me. But utricide? Well, I decided to look up the one appearance of the word in the English language, and it is in the 1566 translation of Apuleius' Golden Ass. This ancient novel humorously tells the story of the transformation of Lucius into an ass, when he was messing around with magic, and then, through various adventures (and mostly misadventures) his "conversion" to the mysteries of Isis and his regaining human form. The appearance of utricide is in 3.18 of the Latin text (utricidam is the Latin word) and it occurs in a funny episode where Lucius is trying to, as it were, fight his way to freedom against phantasmagoric foes. But, these foes end up being inflated bags rather than real people. Thus, when he slits one of the bags, he becomes a "bag killer" rather than a "homicide," or "human killer." It really is quite funny in the story, though I may not have brought out the humor very well.

Conclusion

The word uberty means productiveness, fruitfulness or abundant yield. Its adjectival form is uberous. Its first English appearance, in 1624, had to do with the milk yielded by a cow. "Milke, from the uberous Cow,/ Was ne're so pure in substance." A person with great presence can be referred to as one of "uberous presence." It suggests something that is very full and copious.

Let's conclude with mentioning uhlan, uloid, ulitis and ughten. An uhlan is a special type of calvaryman or lancer in European armies, originally in the Slavonic countries. Something that is uloid, from the Greek word oule (meaning scar), has the appearance of a scar or cicatrix. Ulitis is inflammation of the gums. Finally, ughten, related to the German "uchten" and the Scandanavian "otta," means "the part of the night immediately before daybreak; early morning." The principal attestations of this word are from the 13th century and earlier, but this web site tells us that a Scots dialect version of it, "oachenin" was still being used in Caithness, Scotland around 1900.

Thanks for joining me on this journey of words.

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