"admitted allegation"?

[Baker, John]

        In a civil court, a lawsuit is initiated by filing a complaint,
which recites a number of allegations by the plaintiff.  The defendant
responds with an answer, in which each allegation is admitted or denied
(or some permutation thereon).  So the cardinal's usage was quite
unexceptional in a legal context.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Joel S. Berson
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 11:28 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "admitted allegation"?

At 3/9/2011 11:06 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>By confession or independent verification.

Yes, I got the intent, but part of the usage grated.  Isn't it a
*crime* that would be admitted (confessed), not an allegation?  "I
confess to the allegation" or I confess to the alleged crime"? (On
second reading, establishing / verifying an allegation now sounds OK to
me.)

Joel

>DanG
>
>On Mar 9, 2011 9:58 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      "admitted allegation"?
> >
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
> >
> > Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia is quoted as having said, in
> > response to the grand jury report, that  ' there were no priests in
> > active ministry "who have an admitted or established allegation of
> > sexual abuse of a minor against them." '
> >
> > NYTimes, March 9, "Philadelphia Cardinal Suspending 21 Priests", by
> > Catharaine Q. Seelye.
> >
> > How does an "allegation" become "admitted"?  Or "established"?

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