Wherein hereinafter, hereinbefore and therethroughout are considered

I can’t pass by Trebots’ brief entry on The sad decline of hereinbefore. I have to say I have little use for hereinbefore, but quite a lot for hereinafter. I will counter his with another
Google chart which makes me wonder why aforementioned should be on the rise.

English Language & Usage Stack Exchange calls these pronominal adverbs and links to a list in wiktionary. I have not heard of therethroughout but remember the confusion caused to students when they mistook wherefor for wherefore.

On the same subject, it seems that not everyone regards whereby and wobei as false friends.

I used to use an exercise with students where they had to enter the right form of, for instance, hereof, thereof and whereof. They found it surprisingly difficult – surprising to me because German does exactly the same thing.

There’s some good stuff on this and many other aspects of legal English in Rupert Haigh’s book Legal English. There is a website for the book where there are some exercises, although I could not understand the structure of the one on these words. The website is for the fourth edition of the book, whereas I only have the third edition.

Welcome to the online resource bank to support the fourth edition of Rupert Haigh’s Legal English.

If you are a student you will find a bank of activities and exercises corresponding to the chapters in the book designed to give you additional practice opportunities in using Legal English in a range of scenarios. These will range from simple gap-fill exercises, to multiple choice questions, to written activities, to comprehension exercises based on video simulations of real-life legal situations. An automatic grading facility will help you assess your own progress and identify areas for improvement. You can also email your results to your class tutor if required.

In the video section, you can find four instructional videos, based on the book and recorded by the author, to illustrate concepts discussed in the book.

If you are a lecturer you will find a bank of customisable activities which can be used with small groups in seminars or tutorials to help practice their use of oral Legal English.

Matching exercises
Question 3
The extract below is from an Indian deed of partition. It contains various old-fashioned terms beginning with here-, there-, or where- (e.g. hereof, whereof, thereof, hereby, hereinafter etc), which are still commonly found in documents relating to land purchases. For each numbered gap in the extract, select the correct word from the choices below.

6 thoughts on “Wherein hereinafter, hereinbefore and therethroughout are considered

  1. I once used quite a lot of the old hereof in a NL-EN and the client got very upset and wanted his money back because he still couldn’t understand it. I will treasure that list – I think I could identify the pronominal on a diagram of the human body, not sure about English and adverbs tho.

  2. It’s a good idea to ascertain beforehand, any interposed translation agency permitting, whether the end-users are legally or judicially qualified and/or trained, so will understand and appreciate shorthand terms – taught to those of us who have worked in the real world at banks, insurance companies, City of London law firms abroad (des vorliegenden Vertrags or de este contrato = hereof or hereto), UK HM Land Registries and barristers’ chambers – like thereof, whereof, herein, hereinbefore, here/in/after, heretofore, herethroughout and inter se, the latter being completely lost on the law dept. of a Japanese corporation.

    Dabei vs. dadurch is a difficult cognate as does not translate literally well, even by German lawyers, as thereby, but often with a gerundive as a subclause: all the while….covenanting etc.

    I trust these ‘within-written’ comments will strike a chord.

  3. Not really What kind of German contracts have you encountered ‘dabei’ in, Adrian? Please quote the original German!

  4. OK, I’ll give you a few of them.
    I did of course mention this point, albeit more succinctly and without a reference to German lawyers.

  5. Indeed, ‘more succinctly’, Yours Truly merely parroting your previous ‘dabei’ comments borne of classroom and emprical deduction.

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