The problem with 'articulable'
By William Safire
Sunday, October 21, 2007
LANGUAGE
Have you ever heard anyone articulate the adjective articulable? It's a surefire stumble-over word, to be read and not spoken, concocted by lawyers in the past few decades to fit into the narrow space between clear and specific. Though it hasn't made it into many dictionaries, articulable may turn out to be a word that helps bridge the divide between civil liberty and national security.
On the side of liberty, there's a need to preserve the ability of the free press, when exposing corruption or abuses, to protect confidential sources without getting slammed into jail by leak-plugging, publicity-hungry prosecutors. On security's side, there's a need to preserve the government's power to thwart dangerous terrorist plots.
Though partisanship is in the saddle these days, a bill in the judiciary committees of Congress is making progress toward striking a balance of these two central values with their passage of the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007. (Disclosure: I testified - first time in 33 years as an opinionmonger - for this bill giving reporters the same ability to protect confidential sources as the privilege not to testify already held by doctors, lawyers, the clergy, psychologists and every spouse in the country. )
The sticking point in this legislation was the key exception to the journalist's right to protect a whistle-blower. The House committee said that testimony of a reporter could be compelled "to prevent imminent and actual harm to national security." That makes sense in striking the balance, but the Justice Department wanted a fuzzier standard.
In the markup of the Senate bill, the phrase "preventing a specific case of terrorism against the United States" was watered down at Justice's behest to "preventing an act of terrorism"; the loss of the hard, understandable "specific," however, was rebalanced somewhat by modifying the following "or significant harm" to "other significant and articulable harm."
I have seen the crossing-out and handwritten added word on the draft bill but will not reveal my sources. (Cagney or Bogart: "Come and get me, coppers!") They tell me that with specific deleted and with concrete too strong, they were "looking for a justiciable standard"; asked what the word pronounced jus-TISH-able meant, the answer was "a word that judges can pour meaning into."
Now we're in my etymological-semantic bailiwick. Articulable is a favorite in Fourth Amendment cases, dealing with the permissibility of warrantless police searches. In Terry v. Ohio, decided in 1968, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the Supreme Court: ". . . in justifying the particular intrusion, the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which . . . reasonably warrant that intrusion."
It's also an FBI favorite phrase: Even before passage of the Patriot Act in 2001, The Boston Globe noted this year, the FBI could issue national security letters "to get data on persons it had 'specific and articulable' reasons to believe were terrorists." And only last month, The Times of London reported that "the American government says it has 'specific and articulable' proof" that U.S. companies were legally supplying Arab countries with components for advanced roadside bombs, which were then purchased by Iran for shipment to Iraq.
What does the word mean?
Anatomists know that the Latin root, articulare, means "to divide into joints"; from that we get the joining of words into clear, understandable speech. As a verb, to articulate means "to enunciate clearly" or "to express well in words"; as an adjective, articulate is "well spoken," sometimes even "glib."
Most of us have no trouble with articulate, verb and modifier. The problem is with articulable.
Although it is well defined in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law as "capable of being expressed, explained or justified," in some usages above it is treated as a synonym for "specific"; in others, it is a softer substitute for that hard-edged word that better protects civil liberty.
In the bill I'm rooting for the House and Senate to pass and the president to sign, I take articulable to mean: "You have to explain in words on the judicial record exactly why you're insisting that the reporter burn his source. Then a judge will decide if that possible harm is significant enough to outweigh the public interest in not weakening the First Amendment."
As a word maven, I'd rather use articulatable, rhyming with "debatable"; it's a syllable longer but a lot easier to say. To public speakers, as well as to the free flow of information, its benefit would be incalculable.
safireonlanguage@nytimes.com
By William Safire
Sunday, October 21, 2007
LANGUAGE
Have you ever heard anyone articulate the adjective articulable? It's a surefire stumble-over word, to be read and not spoken, concocted by lawyers in the past few decades to fit into the narrow space between clear and specific. Though it hasn't made it into many dictionaries, articulable may turn out to be a word that helps bridge the divide between civil liberty and national security.
On the side of liberty, there's a need to preserve the ability of the free press, when exposing corruption or abuses, to protect confidential sources without getting slammed into jail by leak-plugging, publicity-hungry prosecutors. On security's side, there's a need to preserve the government's power to thwart dangerous terrorist plots.
Though partisanship is in the saddle these days, a bill in the judiciary committees of Congress is making progress toward striking a balance of these two central values with their passage of the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007. (Disclosure: I testified - first time in 33 years as an opinionmonger - for this bill giving reporters the same ability to protect confidential sources as the privilege not to testify already held by doctors, lawyers, the clergy, psychologists and every spouse in the country. )
The sticking point in this legislation was the key exception to the journalist's right to protect a whistle-blower. The House committee said that testimony of a reporter could be compelled "to prevent imminent and actual harm to national security." That makes sense in striking the balance, but the Justice Department wanted a fuzzier standard.
In the markup of the Senate bill, the phrase "preventing a specific case of terrorism against the United States" was watered down at Justice's behest to "preventing an act of terrorism"; the loss of the hard, understandable "specific," however, was rebalanced somewhat by modifying the following "or significant harm" to "other significant and articulable harm."
I have seen the crossing-out and handwritten added word on the draft bill but will not reveal my sources. (Cagney or Bogart: "Come and get me, coppers!") They tell me that with specific deleted and with concrete too strong, they were "looking for a justiciable standard"; asked what the word pronounced jus-TISH-able meant, the answer was "a word that judges can pour meaning into."
Now we're in my etymological-semantic bailiwick. Articulable is a favorite in Fourth Amendment cases, dealing with the permissibility of warrantless police searches. In Terry v. Ohio, decided in 1968, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the Supreme Court: ". . . in justifying the particular intrusion, the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which . . . reasonably warrant that intrusion."
It's also an FBI favorite phrase: Even before passage of the Patriot Act in 2001, The Boston Globe noted this year, the FBI could issue national security letters "to get data on persons it had 'specific and articulable' reasons to believe were terrorists." And only last month, The Times of London reported that "the American government says it has 'specific and articulable' proof" that U.S. companies were legally supplying Arab countries with components for advanced roadside bombs, which were then purchased by Iran for shipment to Iraq.
What does the word mean?
Anatomists know that the Latin root, articulare, means "to divide into joints"; from that we get the joining of words into clear, understandable speech. As a verb, to articulate means "to enunciate clearly" or "to express well in words"; as an adjective, articulate is "well spoken," sometimes even "glib."
Most of us have no trouble with articulate, verb and modifier. The problem is with articulable.
Although it is well defined in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law as "capable of being expressed, explained or justified," in some usages above it is treated as a synonym for "specific"; in others, it is a softer substitute for that hard-edged word that better protects civil liberty.
In the bill I'm rooting for the House and Senate to pass and the president to sign, I take articulable to mean: "You have to explain in words on the judicial record exactly why you're insisting that the reporter burn his source. Then a judge will decide if that possible harm is significant enough to outweigh the public interest in not weakening the First Amendment."
As a word maven, I'd rather use articulatable, rhyming with "debatable"; it's a syllable longer but a lot easier to say. To public speakers, as well as to the free flow of information, its benefit would be incalculable.
safireonlanguage@nytimes.com
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