03:36 Sep 27, 2022
Plain language is a good target to shoot at, without a doubt. However, certain legal terms are terms of art with a precise meaning and we can't just "dumb them down". This is true of all fields with specialized vocabulary (i.e., I think that "cytokinesis", "heterozygous" and "osteoblast" should be rendered plainly, but biologists would have something to say about the matter). In this case, "hotchpotch" is (unfortunately!) a term of art that refers to the precise common-law equivalent of colación, and therefore must be maintained unless we use "collation", which as Rebecca notes is the English civil-law term. The plain language version "mixture of property", could be used in a separate, plain-language document intended to explain the document's effects for a lay audience, rather than in the legal instrument itself. |