Timeline for Help, the "onus" is on me! What do you call whatever it is I'm supposed to do with it?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
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| Apr 28, 2017 at 14:56 | comment | added | Lambie | @ab2 Onus in everyday English is not typically encountered in the phrase: discharge the onus, which is legal jargon. Typically, bear the onus is used in both. Not all legal phrases qua legal phrases make it into common expressions. Many don't. | |
| Apr 28, 2017 at 14:11 | comment | added | Kiloran_speaking | ab2 - thanks for altering me to this - I'll add the comments to my answer, as a clarification. After that, I think the onus is on the OP! | |
| Apr 28, 2017 at 13:21 | comment | added | ab2 | @Kiloran_speaking I suggest you add this comment and your comment addressed to Miss Monica in an Addendum to your answer, maybe edited so it won't seem like an afterthought . That might remove the OPs doubts about the adequacy of our answers. See his meta question about his acceptance dilemma (or trilemma) english.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/10207/…. It is time for one of us to discharge the onus of defining what discharge an onus means, and I don't have the time. | |
| Apr 28, 2017 at 6:46 | comment | added | Kiloran_speaking | I'd agree with ab2 on this. A person may 'bear a burden' or 'have an onus placed on him', in just the same way that someone can hand you responsibility for something, metaphorically speaking. But once that burden has been dealt with (fully), the onus is lifted or discharged. "Discharging an onus" - in legal terms - simply means doing what needed to be done; there's no implication of it being 'early'. Similarly, and as ab2 said, just because a term is used in legal works doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be used in more general conversation too. | |
| Apr 27, 2017 at 22:33 | comment | added | ab2 | That's like saying "quantum jump" should never be used in ordinary English because it has a precise meaning in physics. Who sez? I am confident that one can discharge a non-legal onus. See my example in comment under your question of Martha, who found an acceptable facility for her elderly parents; she discharged that onus, although the longer term onus of visiting and making sure her parents were being cared for properly fell from her shoulders only when the parents died. She might have transferred that onus to a sibling if, for example, she moved 2,500 miles away. | |
| Apr 27, 2017 at 22:26 | comment | added | ab2 | My answer is unwieldy as it is, so I will answer your point in a comment. The coal company bore the onus until it discharged it. It bore the onus until the judge ruled in its favor. (Please note that I am not a lawyer.) As to the point of @Lambie, one cannot make a legal case that something that is OK in legal language is not OK in ordinary English. A word or phrase may (or may not) be imprecise or unusual in ordinary English, but it is not necessarily wrong to use it in ordinary English because it has a precise legal. meaning. (continued in next comment.) | |
| Apr 27, 2017 at 21:05 | comment | added | einpoklum | So, ab2, how about a less humoristic reply to the point @Lambie is making? Also, note the paragraph you quoted uses "bore the onus", which again ties in to my earlier question about discharging (early) vs bearing (continuously forever or until the duty is fulfilled/disappears). | |
| Apr 27, 2017 at 18:29 | comment | added | Luke | @flith my brain autocorrected your username to "filth" and i thought: how appropriate | |
| Apr 27, 2017 at 11:19 | comment | added | Lambie | Indeed, I can imagine and will not google it. In any event, the question was what verb goes with onus. Well, in general, one does say, in response to the question, bear the onus of something. | |
| Apr 27, 2017 at 11:07 | comment | added | flith | I looked up "discharge the onus" in Google, but autocorrect got the better of me. The image results which followed were... not encouraging. | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 22:56 | comment | added | ab2 | @Lambie So sue me. :) | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 22:22 | history | edited | Laurel♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 26, 2017 at 22:21 | comment | added | Lambie | In a non-legal context, one does not say discharge. That is purely legal. | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 21:49 | comment | added | ab2 | @einpoklum If this clears things up for you, I want to tidy up the answer by removing the Employment Law example and putting the addendum example into the body of the answer. | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 21:46 | history | edited | ab2 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added Addendum at express request of the OP
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| Apr 26, 2017 at 21:27 | comment | added | ab2 | @einpoklum I'm working on it....the onus is on me...I'll either discharge it or fling it off. | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 21:18 | comment | added | einpoklum | Are you sure that "discharging the onus of proof" in that context is actually providing the proof? Rather than, say, making an argument that I don't need to prove? ... in other words, yes, I do want you quote a bit more context for that. | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 21:06 | vote | accept | einpoklum | ||
| Apr 26, 2017 at 21:06 | |||||
| Apr 26, 2017 at 20:17 | history | answered | ab2 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |