I hate this word. "Notwithstanding." Every single time I read it in a case, or in a text-book, or whenever, my mind simply goes blank and I have no idea what the sentence means anymore. It has the misdirection of a double negative...and all it does is vaporize the sentence out of existence. It just becomes no longer available to me.
And I admit. I'm an idiot. I don't pretend this is a common problem.
I looked it up, and apparently it means "in spite of." Yet I still can't figure it out. Does it make sense if I say "not withstanding" in two pieces or "not with standing" in 3 pieces?
If I try to work this out and say "you're guilty notwithstanding the evidence"...to me it sounds like "You are guilty. Though the guilt doesn't withstand the evidence. Meaning, you're not guilty." Although if the dictionary is to be believed it means "You're guilty in spite of the evidence." I don't get it. It hurts. I'm a computer dividing by zero, Einstein standing at the darkness hiding the unified theory, a fresh-faced immigrant watching Arrested Development. It does NOT compute.
1 comment:
Where the hell have you been?
I have one guess:
1) Exam season has begun, and now you've found many new ways to procrastinate.
I mean, yes, if I use the phrase "in spite of" everytime I see the word I can do it. But I don't like having to do that. Just like when I see a sentence that says "The German denies that he did not refuse to violate his brother" I have to come to the conclusion...after ten minutes... that
The German refused to violate his brother.
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