The Fine Print

If I were trying to encourage people to read some truly important but utterly boring block of text, I’d start by announcing an e-contest hidden within the copy. (Congratulations! If you have read this far, text SNORE to…) That ought to keep people scrolling.

But I digress. And maybe I’m not a good sample subject. Because as much as I enjoy the art of the written word, my eyes glaze over when I encounter technical or legal writing. At my first computer job, my mentor handed me half a dozen three-inch binders, detailing the inner workings of whatever computer operating system was in vogue 30 years ago. Perhaps it was that technical overload that left me traumatized for life.

Legalese has a similar effect on me. I once flipped through my friend’s law school textbook and found it excruciating to slog through a full paragraph. When I encounter a string of compound words like “heretofore” and “inasmuch as,” I know that I am in way over my head. (I also know that these lawyer types must be paid by the hour and not by the word, or they wouldn’t keep cobbling multiword phrases into single words.)

At the DMV or the dentist, I find it ironic that my teenage children will always take the time to give at least a perfunctory read of the fine print of any legal document they’re asked to sign. But while I have a certain respect for the fact that these kids have the patience to do that, I still feel the need to apologize to the clerk, secretary, and the line of people behind us. “Sorry, he won’t sign anything until he reads it all the way through.”