A recent question on Jeopardy! led me to look into the phrase “last will and testament”.
We all know what a will is. It is a legal document that sets out the testator’s wishes with respect to the disposal of his or her property upon his or her death. A testament is the same thing.
Commonly, a will is referred to as a “last will and testament”. Why the apparent redundancy?
The phrase is a historical reference to a period when English law and French law language were both used for maximum clarity. The phrase is a “legal doublet”. Other legal doublets include “cease and desist”, “part and parcel”, “terms and conditions” and “break and enter”. The list goes on and continues.
Diving deeper, the legal doublet “last will and testament” is an “irreversible binomial”: words that must be used together in a certain order. One would never refer to a “testament and last will”, much as one would never refer to “cheese and macaroni”, “abet and aid” or “void and null”.
Another theory as to why we refer to a “last will and testament” is that, historically, a will dealt with real property while a testament dealt with personal property. This theory has been debunked.
Still another theory is that, historically, lawyers and clerks were paid by the word. Why use one word when you can get paid for several?
Thank you for reading. Have a safe long weekend. As a client told me, stay positive and test negative!