In England and perhaps some Commonwealth countries, real wax seals are still a thing (or at least a thing in my own memory as a practicing American lawyer who occasionally deals with furriers). We sometimes see „L.S.” for „locus sigilli” on older American legal forms, which was considered enough mana or mojo during an intermediate phase to make the document effective without a real literal wax seal, but I think this has become increasingly rare. But the „SS” in the first section of a state/county of an affidavit remains very common, although it has no obvious functional value, because no one wants to be the one who discovers what cosmic catastrophe will befall the lawyer who is presumptuous enough to leave it out. According to my father, a law professor, „it is the preamble to an affidavit, which is an affidavit made under penalty of perjury before a notary or an official of the court of that state. The party signing the document has declared and sworn everything in the document in that district. However, there are many amusing and archaic legal phrases outside of Latin, such as „in view of a peppercorn with other good and valuable considerations”. Now they have replaced „peppercorn” with „dollars” in contracts. Personally, I would stick to pepper. what Bryan Garner says in the Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage: that it was typed once by mistake, and then copied again and again over the centuries. Collect. says it comes from a flower in the directories (unofficial legal reports from 1282 to 1537). Sorry, what I was looking for was not ss. But ss.
County I did this because I suspect that ss. alone would not be a good research. @David L). I don`t do it myself, but it`s easier than explaining intentional redundancy, given the ease of transposing numbers when writing elongated numbers this way (i.e. if the two versions don`t match, you know there`s a problem and can ask for clarification). And you can`t say by re-reading that 1,372 is a typo for 1,327 unless you know the context so well that you can say that 1,372 doesn`t make sense. This is probably not justified by cost in most contexts (except in those that are extremely risk-averse, what many authors of such papers are), but it`s not as if there isn`t a non-opaque functional explanation. Note that for court documents with specific page or word counting restrictions (which is a lot of what I do), there is more pressure to remove redundancy, thus abandoning the mysterious inherited chatter aimed at appeasing the dark cosmic forces, but in many other types of legal documents, There is no such incentive for brevity. I obviously look very dreary here! But I must protest against the fact that I am called Sir. @Shelley: I didn`t pretend to be a linguist. I never studied linguistics, much to my regret. I linked to this thread and read it before publishing it because someone else had mentioned it on a mailing list.
Regardless, I`m sure the link was easy to miss and the way I jumped on you didn`t do anyone much good. @Mark: I don`t think I used the term „theory,” but I`m not 100% convinced. It may be impossible to say this without sounding condescending. @hat: Thank you very much for the explanation. I had forgotten that this discussion could still take place because nothing developed on my site. I know L.S. as locus sigilli. The problem with the seal/sigillum is the position of the ss.
in this header. If you are using ss. Search for it in Google, you can see many documents that are not sworn, but SS. have. Take my first shot: www.in.gov/idoi/pdf/MaxicareLiq.pdf It`s a winding-up order, and no one has sworn anything. That is only part of the title of the tribunal. That`s why I like Garner`s explanation that it doesn`t make sense and was accidentally copied. Mark, how does your father explain ss. When there is no curse and no affidavit? And no one knows what that means. There are, of course, several theories.
The first is that they are „paragraphs”; It seems to me to be dejected by the fact that there are no subsection numbers next to it. Another is that scilicet means „to know”; Aside from the fact that the normal abbreviation is SC, „namely” makes no sense here. The explanation that Margaret Marks, from whom I take this article, cautiously prefers (and I`m glad to hear it because I, a legal ignoramus, like her too) is good to see a discussion here! @Shelley: I mentioned this thread in my entry. Maybe you googled but didn`t read my entry?! @dungbeattle: The problem with seals is that they do not appear at the top of a document, but at the bottom, next to the signature(s). The „Scilicet” theory is believed by Merriam-Webster, FWIW. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ss#legalDictionary sorry, LH. I thought you were the person responding to what I wrote through the nature of the comment – it sounded like something the blog owner would say. A misunderstanding. What I said about linguists not being supported – it probably is. While each notarial document must contain a notarial deed, each notarial deed usually contains certain elements; The notary will identify and understand the type of data or information to be inserted in this part of the document. A very common element that a notary can see on the notarial deed is the letters „ss”, which usually appear in the upper left corner of the document or notarial deed.
This is the scope of the certificate that contains the location. The place is the part of the notarized document that indicates the place – the physical place – where notarization takes place: the place where the signatory and the notary are physically located at the time of notarization. What do these letters mean? Since Social Security numbers are a common identifier in our society, many voters and perhaps notaries believe that the letters ask for the client`s Social Security number. It`s not true. The letters „ss” instead of the place of the notary`s certificate actually represent the Latin word scilicet, which means in particular as much as „knowledge” or „to know”. The idea has to do with granting a legal permission or license; Its importance in terms of jurisdiction and notarial certification is currently considered archaic and opaque. Although the letters „ss” may appear on the notarial deed, they are in no way necessary and may be omitted on certain notarial acts that a notary may encounter. A notary must be diligent in inserting the state and county for the place upon request, but it is not necessary to add the letters „ss” to the notarial deed if they have been omitted. Certification is also valid without it.
No one wants to be the one who understands what cosmic catastrophe is going to happen to the lawyer who is presumptuous enough to leave him out Many documents, especially those created by banks and similar institutions, display the „S.S.” icon next to the spaces for location information (State of ___, County of ___). An astonishing number of notaries do not know the meaning of the „SS” symbol or mistakenly believe that it is a request for a social security number! Shelley: Don`t go crazy! No one said such a thing. MM only pointed out that she linked to the thread in her post, but she had a bunch of links, so you may have missed it. In any case, thanks for the reminder, because I studied it further and found yet another suggestion: „situs sigillium” or „sanctus sigillium”; either the purported PLACE of the scribe`s seal, or the Holy Seal, which testifies to the fact that the document is made as an affidavit with the Lord`s fear of perjury. I would be very desperate if you never commented again! If you want to browse a document, this is sometimes useful. Then, if something goes wrong, you can read the full version to check if there is a typo. No, you need to read a little more David. Read the article. (These are U.S. legal documents that contain a meaningless ss. in the title.) and that it started with the section on meaning. Bryan Garner quoted the LCJ, Lord Hardwicke on „Jodderrell v.
Cowell”, at King`s Bench in 1737. This doesn`t help much, because although everyone copied it, including his „sic” in County, a) he misspelled Jodderell, and b) Hardwicke`s speech or written opinion does not appear: neither on the page he cites (222, perhaps from the previous edition?) nor elsewhere I have access (the case itself is here, at p. 343). Thank you, Mr Garner, for wasting my time. But anyway, what Hardwicke said (somewhere) in 1737 is that I know legal terminology tends to be obscure, but that`s ridiculous. Apparently, in the header of the affidavits, there is a line that simply says „ss” between the state and county names, so: I can say that in my years of legal education, § always meant „section,” and I have never seen a case where it was used to mean „scilicate.” Phew, I thought I was really stupid! I`m almost done law school and I still don`t know what SS means. Anyone checking with Blackstone? Many possible etymologies have been suggested for this mysterious abbreviation. The first is that it means scillicet (= namely, to say), which is usually abbreviated sc. or scil. Another is that ss. „the two gold letters at the ends of the desk chain or necklace” worn by the Lord Chief Justice of the King`s Bench.
Max Radin, Law Dictionary 327 (1955). Melinkoff suggests that the exact etymology is unknown: „Avocados have been using ss for nine hundred years and are still unsure what it means.” David Melinkoff, The Language of Law 296 (1963). In fact, however, this is a frills derived from directories – an equivalent of the sales mark: „¶”. Hence Lord Hardwicke`s statement that ss. is nothing more than a sign of division.