Edward Gibson

And we didn't know what was hard about them, but it turns out that the way they're written is very center-embedded, has nested structures in them. So it has low-frequency words as well. That's not surprising. Lots of texts have low-frequency. It does have surprising, slightly lower-frequency words than other kinds of control texts, even sort of academic texts. Legalese is even worse.

And we didn't know what was hard about them, but it turns out that the way they're written is very center-embedded, has nested structures in them. So it has low-frequency words as well. That's not surprising. Lots of texts have low-frequency. It does have surprising, slightly lower-frequency words than other kinds of control texts, even sort of academic texts. Legalese is even worse.

It is the worst that we were able to find.

It is the worst that we were able to find.

It is the worst that we were able to find.

Well, you know, it's interesting. Now you're getting at why. And so now you're saying they're doing it intentionally. I don't think they're doing it intentionally. It's an emergent phenomenon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But we wanted to see why. So we see what first. Because it turns out that we're not the first to observe that legalese is weird.

Well, you know, it's interesting. Now you're getting at why. And so now you're saying they're doing it intentionally. I don't think they're doing it intentionally. It's an emergent phenomenon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But we wanted to see why. So we see what first. Because it turns out that we're not the first to observe that legalese is weird.

Well, you know, it's interesting. Now you're getting at why. And so now you're saying they're doing it intentionally. I don't think they're doing it intentionally. It's an emergent phenomenon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But we wanted to see why. So we see what first. Because it turns out that we're not the first to observe that legalese is weird.

Like back to Nixon had a Plain Language Act in 1970, and Obama had one. And boy, a lot of presidents have said, oh, we've got to simplify legal language, must simplify it. But if you don't know how it's complicated, it's not easy to simplify it. You need to know what it is you're supposed to do before you can fix it.

Like back to Nixon had a Plain Language Act in 1970, and Obama had one. And boy, a lot of presidents have said, oh, we've got to simplify legal language, must simplify it. But if you don't know how it's complicated, it's not easy to simplify it. You need to know what it is you're supposed to do before you can fix it.

Like back to Nixon had a Plain Language Act in 1970, and Obama had one. And boy, a lot of presidents have said, oh, we've got to simplify legal language, must simplify it. But if you don't know how it's complicated, it's not easy to simplify it. You need to know what it is you're supposed to do before you can fix it.

And so you need a psycholinguist to analyze the text and see what's wrong with it before you can fix it. You don't know how to fix it. How am I supposed to fix something? I don't know what's wrong with it. And so what we did was just, that's what we did. We figured out, okay, we just took a bunch of contracts, had people, and we encoded them for a bunch of features.

And so you need a psycholinguist to analyze the text and see what's wrong with it before you can fix it. You don't know how to fix it. How am I supposed to fix something? I don't know what's wrong with it. And so what we did was just, that's what we did. We figured out, okay, we just took a bunch of contracts, had people, and we encoded them for a bunch of features.

And so you need a psycholinguist to analyze the text and see what's wrong with it before you can fix it. You don't know how to fix it. How am I supposed to fix something? I don't know what's wrong with it. And so what we did was just, that's what we did. We figured out, okay, we just took a bunch of contracts, had people, and we encoded them for a bunch of features.

And so another feature, one of them was center embedding. And so that is basically how often a person

And so another feature, one of them was center embedding. And so that is basically how often a person

And so another feature, one of them was center embedding. And so that is basically how often a person

a clause would intervene between a subject and a verb for example that's one kind of a center embedding of a clause okay and turns out they're massively center embedded like so I think in random contracts and in random laws I think you get about 70% or 80 something 70% of sentences have a center embedded clause which is insanely high. If you go to any other text, it's down to 20% or something.

a clause would intervene between a subject and a verb for example that's one kind of a center embedding of a clause okay and turns out they're massively center embedded like so I think in random contracts and in random laws I think you get about 70% or 80 something 70% of sentences have a center embedded clause which is insanely high. If you go to any other text, it's down to 20% or something.

a clause would intervene between a subject and a verb for example that's one kind of a center embedding of a clause okay and turns out they're massively center embedded like so I think in random contracts and in random laws I think you get about 70% or 80 something 70% of sentences have a center embedded clause which is insanely high. If you go to any other text, it's down to 20% or something.