Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Pretend that you took all words at their literal interpretation, all of the time, wherever you went, and acted upon those words strictly and accordingly. For ...

For businesses and lawyers, a new test set out by the Supreme Court will help inform when one can stray from the literal words of a contract and adopt an interpretation that accords with commercial ...

It’s the literal truth, we say, as if that “literal” conveyed an extra measure of authority. Actually, literal meanings are frequently wrong, and often confusing. A recent example is the “naked wife” ...

Lady Macbeth’s famous soliloquy is fearsome to behold. In the speech—which appears in Act 1 Scene 5 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth—Lady Macbeth resolves to kill Duncan, the King of Scotland, so Macbeth can ...