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Path: utzoo!lsuc!msb
From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: The magic number nine.
Message-ID: <625@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Apr-85 13:41:53 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.625
Posted: Fri Apr 26 13:41:53 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Apr-85 14:23:47 EST
References: <388@ihu1m.UUCP> <134@bocklin.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Distribution: net
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 25
Summary: 

Ken Perlow:
> > "Possession is nine points of the law."  I asked about this
> > one (often misstated as "Possession is nine tenths of the law.")

Gary Levin:
> Courtesy of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (a useful book
> when reading net news)
> 
> Possesion is nine points of the law -- It is every advantage a person
> can have short of actual right.  The ``nine points'' have been given
> as: (1) a good deal of money, (2) a good deal of patience, (3) a good
> cause, (4) a good lawyer, (5) a good counsel, (6) good witnesses,
> (7) a good jury, (8) a good judge, (9) good luck.

This looks quite unbelievable to me.  Surely the original basis was
indeed some phrase meaning 9/10, such as "9 points out of 10".  (Which, of
course, makes the "misstatement" quite correct, as someone else said.)  And
then somebody came up with the list in retrospect.  Does Brewer's actually say
that the idiom is derived from the list?  ... I thought not.

Maybe "N points" is an old idiom for "N points out of N+1", i.e. N/(N+1) ?
Seems to me that I have seen "3 points drunk" for "3/4 drunk" or some such
phrase somewhere in British writing, but I can't remember for sure.

Mark Brader