About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

92 Notre Dame L. Rev. Online 1 (2016-2017)

handle is hein.journals/ndalro92 and id is 1 raw text is: 









ESSAY


                NEW WINE IN OLD WINESKINS:

             METAPHOR AND LEGAL RESEARCH


                    Amy  E. Sloan* &  Colin Starger**

     And  no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will
burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new
wine into fresh wineskins.'

                             INTRODUCTION

     Language   gives and language  takes away.  Words   can facilitate our
thoughts, but so too can they calcify our thinking. Recall the 1980s critique
of using  male-only  pronouns  to refer to people generically.  (When  a
judge decides, he exercises power; When  a politician wins, he is happy).
Feminists  argued  that  this linguistic practice systematically excluded
women   and  reinforced suspect patriarchal norms.  Though  debates raged
for years, the critique rightly won the day and transformed our discourse.2
Today   insisting on male-only   pronouns  seems   sexist and  as socially
regressive as referring to African-Americans as coloreds.





   0   2016 Amy E. Sloan & Colin Starger. Individuals and nonprofit institutions may
reproduce and distribute copies of this Essay in any format, at or below cost, for educational
purposes, so long as each copy identifies the author, provides a citation to the
Notre Dame Law Review Online, and includes this provision in the copyright notice.
    *   Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law. Thanks go to Linda Berger,
Peggy Cooper-Davis, Linda Edwards, Ruth Anne Robbins, and Michael R. Smith for
comments  on earlier drafts and to Nathaniel Shyovitz and Laura Cress for research
assistance.
    **  Associate Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law. Principal, SCOTUS
Mapping Project. J.D. Columbia Law School, 2002.
    1  Mark 2:22 (New Revised Standard Version); see also Matthew 9:17.
    2  See, e.g., ANNE PAUWELS, WOMEN CHANGING LANGUAGE 225 (1998); Judith D.
Fischer, Framing Gender: Federal Appellate Judges' Choices About Gender-Neutral
Language, 43 U.S.F. L. REv. 473 (2009).


1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most