It sounds slang-y because "and all" occurs in casual speech (like "and stuff"), but it's actually old-timey (like "It cannot be gainsaid").
Sasha consults the OED and finds the the phrase goes back to 1829. And he searches the entire Supreme Court archive to find that there is — after 2 recent iterations of the phrase "still and all" — only one other appearance of those 3 words in sequence, a 1961 case about the search of a distillery:
Indeed, the officers here could have abated the nuisance without judicial help by destroying the still and all of its paraphernalia....
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১০টি মন্তব্য:
Doing the jobs native born Americans don't want to do.
Justice Whitaker finally gets his day in the sun.
Speaking of what's wrong with SCOTUS and administrative law, Epstein at his best going back to first principles on that here a couple of days ago.
There are principles that make sense that judges are oblivious of.
I would like to use "gainsaid" more frequently in writing and conversation, but isn't the phrase "cannot be gainsaid" a double negative?
Although Justice Whitaker did give us the classic Hanson v. Denckla.
I should say, it feels like a double negative to me.
To Justice and all!
I'm bemused that Ed Whelan is so ridiculous when it comes to judicial prose. Can it really be that he is either (1) such a glutton for punishment that he actually objects to good writing, or (2) such a hack that he's willing to pretend because it's Elena Kagan? Jesus Christ, Ed. Ever hear of Frank Easterbrook? Alex Kozinski? Most of us thought that they are shining examples of a certain style of judicial writing, one that is at very least commendable to those who can pull it off.
Time and again, folks use ancient grammatical constructions that seem to make no sense.
And then there's the godawful phrase that seems to be used mainly by people under forty-- "even still."
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