Arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday in the case of Briscoe v. Virginia, the University of Michigan law professor Richard Friedman gave the justices an unintentional vocabulary lesson:
MR. FRIEDMAN: I think that issue is entirely orthogonal to the issue here because the Commonwealth is acknowledging—
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I’m sorry. Entirely what?
MR. FRIEDMAN: Orthogonal. Right angle. Unrelated. Irrelevant.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Oh.
JUSTICE SCALIA: What was that adjective? I liked that.
MR. FRIEDMAN: Orthogonal.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Orthogonal.
MR. FRIEDMAN: Right, right.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Orthogonal, ooh.
(Laughter.)
JUSTICE KENNEDY: I knew this case presented us a problem.
(Laughter.)
MR. FRIEDMAN: I should have — I probably should have said -
JUSTICE SCALIA: I think we should use that in the opinion.
(Laughter.)
MR. FRIEDMAN: I thought — I thought I had seen it before.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Or the dissent.
(Laughter.)
MR. FRIEDMAN: That is a bit of professorship creeping in, I suppose.
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9 Responses to The Supremes’ Orthogonal Moment
11351990 - January 12, 2010 at 4:08 pm
“Orthogonal” is not an esoteric word. It makes you wonder about the Republican appointees.
schafwr1 - January 12, 2010 at 4:33 pm
I was tempted to post a one word response, “Esoteric?”, but I was worried no one would get the joke.
smayersu - January 12, 2010 at 4:36 pm
I wonder if the justices’ opinions were all normalized. Then the case could be considered an orthonormal set.
wrbilledwards - January 12, 2010 at 4:52 pm
I would say that it is not the Republican justices, but Friedman who is to be faulted in this exchange – “orthogonal” does not mean “irrelevant”! He is pretentiously importing a mathematical, engineering term that does not really apply.
hoffpeter - January 12, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Perhaps the problem was that of distinguishing between a right angle and a left angle.
rustyo - January 12, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Dictionary.com and the Visual Thesaurus cite words like extraneous, immaterial and impertinent as possible definitions or synonyms for the word orthogonal. Perhaps Friedman is just reading newer sources for his words.
ais23 - January 13, 2010 at 9:54 am
The comments at Volokh go over the meaning (non-math) and use of orthogonal, as well as the difference between orthogonal and tangential.
chronicleed - January 13, 2010 at 10:26 am
Rustyo – I wonder then if Friedman was orthogonal for using the word orthogonal?
rustyo - January 13, 2010 at 4:52 pm
chronicleed…perhaps he will respond to our comments and we will know…