What Is Money? Legal Language as Modern Day Alchemy

Harrington assesses the language of money in a legal context and demonstrates how clear definitions can be as legally problematic as they are important. Focussing on the key terms of money, payment and debt, her analysis combines legal sources such as case law and statutes and linguistic corpora to explore the relationship between ordinary and technical legal meanings. She demonstrates that while words for money may appear readily understandable in most ordinary and everyday usage, there are also alternative and contradictory meanings used in law which profoundly impact on everyday life as well as users of the legal system. This chapter highlights the significance of legal language and is a much-needed appraisal of why legal definitions of such key everyday concepts are so elusive.