The Proper Pronunciation of Certiorari

[Baker, John]

                "Certiorari" refers to the Supreme Court's writ of certiorari, a key step in the consideration of the large majority of cases that the court considers.  It is central to Supreme Court practice and part of the vocabulary of every American lawyer.  But how should the word be pronounced?  It is Law Latin and was never used in classical periods, and there is general agreement that an anglicized pronunciation is appropriate, but the agreement stops there.

                It turns out that the Supreme Court Justices themselves have no agreement on this point.  A recent article in The Green Bag, which calls itself "an entertaining journal of law," counts a variety of pronunciations used by Justices in formal settings, where they presumably had time to think about the pronunciation they wanted to use:

ser-shee-or-RAHR-ee
sert-zee-or-RAHR-ee
ser-shee-or-RARE-eye
ser-shee-or-RARE-ee
ser-shee-or-ARR-eye
ser-shee-ARR-ee

                On its face, this might seem to suggest that common pronunciations are superfluous, if a word's pronunciation can be as variable as spellings were five centuries ago.  But there is another approach taken by two Justices, who always pronounce it "cert" (i.e., "sert") in informal contexts and "review" in more formal settings.  Apparently they, at least, feel discomfort with a word that does not have a standard pronunciation.

                The article is at http://www.greenbag.org/v17n3/v17n3_articles_duane.pdf.


John Baker




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