I’ve noticed that some people have difficulties distinguishing the words around the topic of law, so for these troubled students, here is a brief
article to help you...
Law: (n) The Oxford English Dictionary says this: The body of rules, whether proceeding from formal enactment or from custom, which a particular state or community recognizes as binding on its members or subjects. […] To be a little less formal, ~ is a collection of regulations that a group of people must abide.
Ex. Our Fraternity’s law dictates that all freshmen must undergo the initiation sequence.
Legal: (adj) The Oxford English Dictionary tells us this: ’falling within the province of law’. To be more understandable, we can say ~ means that the action is not in confrontation with any regulations of the law.
Ex. Although downloading songs and films from file sharing sites isn’t illegal, some politicians and record label presidents claim that it isn’t legal either.
Rule (n): Though The Oxford English Dictionary says the word ’rule’ is ’A principle, regulation, or maxim governing individual conduct’, we may go linguistically easier on ourselves. Let’s say rule is the building block of law; it is the given instruction on how one may act or not act.
Ex. There is one rule of chess that I always forget: one may swap the King and the Rook once in one game.
Right (n): The legal capability for a person (or subject) to do something, or not do something.
Ex. Nobility had the right to set their peasants to labor on one day of the week.
Common mistakes
In my years of tutoring I’ve heard a collection of misuses of these four words. Be careful; do not use them in these structures!
1. Mixing law (noun) and legal (adjective)
*It is not law to park your car at the corner.
2. Using the noun as a verb. Verb form means ‘to dominate’.
*Chess rules that you can swap the two figures.
3. Getting confused in the meanings of the word ‘right’ and understanding it as a direction rather than an adjective.
Ex. You have no right to skip school this year! – So do I have a left? [ : ) ]
law | törvény |
legal | törvényes |
rule | szabály |
rule, to | uralkodni / uralni |
right | jog |
distinguish, to | megkülönböztetni |
enactment | rendelet |
binding | kötelező |
maxim | alapelv |
misuse | rossz használat |
rook | bástya (sakkban) |
skip, to | lógni, elkerülni |
Oh, and finally, my dear student LFCK has kindly informed me that the word ‘legális’ is non-existent in Hungarian legal terminology and is a common misuse of people. We should be saying ‘törvényes’ for legal and ‘törvénytelen’ if we want to express illegal. Thanks for the heads up!
OBEY!:)
VálaszTörlés