How often I wanted to apply the same to contracts and would wish to see it in legal texts as well. Parenthesis (and lists) would make legalese so much more readable and remove ambiguities. Still wondering why they do not use these tools.
I'm completely ignorant in the legal texts/contracts area, but they don't use parenthesis and lists? That seems hard to believe - or is it that they just don't use it to indicate precedence and order?
Canons of legal construction exist because of ambiguity in human language.
Here are a few that illustrate common imprecision in language.[0]
Conjunctive/Disjunctive Canon. And joins a conjunctive list, or a disjunctive list—but with negatives, plurals, and various specific wordings there are nuances.
Last-Antecedent Canon. A pronoun, relative pronoun, or demonstrative adjective generally refers to the nearest reasonable antecedent.
Series-Qualifier Canon. When there is a straightforward, parallel construction that involves all nouns or verbs in a series, a prepositive or postpositive modifier normally applies to the entire series.
Nearest-Reasonable-Referent Canon. When the syntax involves something other than a parallel series of nouns or verbs, a prepositive or postpositive modifier normally applies only to the nearest reasonable referent.
Proviso Canon. A proviso conditions the principal matter that it qualifies—almost always the matter immediately preceding.
General/Specific Canon. If there is a conflict between a general provision and a specific provision, the specific provision prevails (generalia specialibus non derogant).
How would one parse "if A and B or C"? You'd want to add parentheses "(A and B) or C"; or "A and (B or C)". For a simple case, a comma might suffice, but more conditions can get difficult to express unambiguously in plain language.
