Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Grammar Girl, Grammar Girl's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Today's topic is illegal versus unlawful. mr_scruff grammar Actually, as Phil Kryder picked up in his Louisiana question, there's a much stronger distinction between "unlawful" and "illegal" than your column implies, which is easier to see in terms of the exercise of authority or coercion. An "illegal" action is an action in violation of the law. An "unlawful" action means that the law bestows no authority that enables that particular action to occur. NOTE: this does NOT mean, in and of itself, that the law _prohibits_ that act, as is blithely suggested by some of the posts and indeed the column. An "unlawful" contract that attempts to bind its parties to a course of action, in fact fails to bind those parties to that course of action, because it has no authority at law; it is null and void. The courts will not recognise it as binding. However, whether that contract was in any sense "illegal" is a completely separate question. It may be the contract is null but there's no penalty. Often, of course, something can be both unlawful and illegal. For example, if you're attacked by an assailant, you might wrestle him to the ground and detain him until police arrive. If indeed the person you have detained is the assailant, and police in an analogous situation would have arrested him, you've probably acted within the law in achieving a "citizen's arrest"-- an exercise in coercive force recognised at common law within the English-speaking world, hence lawful. If, however, by horrible mistake you've accidentally detained the wrong person, then the detention is now _unlawful_, because the courts wouldn't approve it. Furthermore, because the law takes a dim view of arbitrary coercion of innocent bystanders, what you've done may also be regarded as _illegal_ (to be decided in the first instance by a magistrate, and maybe then by a jury of your peers...) Memo to Legal Lad: legal dictionaries aren't an especially good source of guidance in non-trivial legal questions like this one. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=16521#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=16521#Comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:20:53 GMT Diana Diehl grammar Interestingly, the change from "in-" to "im-" or "il-" has more to do with where the next letter in the word is formed in your mouth. People tend to slur words together such that they drop inconvenient letters when the movement of the mouth is too complex. In + probable becomes improbable, where the m and the p are both pronounced with the lips together. "Going to" is widely becoming "gonna". Lazy lips let consonants slip. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=16433#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=16433#Comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 05:53:17 GMT jen grammar I always thought the difference was that unlawful was against the law and illegal was just a sick bird! lol... ok, that's my mom's stupid joke (not much of one, but I hear it waaaaaaay too often!) Seriously though, thanks for this site! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=16346#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=16346#Comments Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:25:53 GMT Helen grammar I hear people say they did something unconsciously. The word is SUB consciously. If you did it the first way, you would be doing something while you were not awake. The second way means it was buried within your ID. Am I correct? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=15604#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=15604#Comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:50:59 GMT sally grammar That was great!! Now I'm not confusd. By the way, do you have a slide for prepositions and pronouns and stuff? I have sooooo many trouble with those. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=15327#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=15327#Comments Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:47:10 GMT Hudson grammar The words Unlawful and Illegal are always puzzling me. If you go to a public concert and they say that it is illegal to crowd surf people are they using the right form of words? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=15294#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=15294#Comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:30:57 GMT Phil Kryder grammar Does the Napoleonic code influence the difference between unlawful and illegal? I thought English Common law was based on "that which is not prohibited is allowed" while the Napoleonic code was based on "that which is not allowed explicitly is illegal." Does this mean that unlawful and illegal have different meanings in Louisiana? Best Phil http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=13672#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=13672#Comments Sun, 31 Aug 2008 07:30:33 GMT Sarah grammar Hello, I would like to know the meaning of internal versus interior and residence versus residential...Thank you http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=13141#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=13141#Comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:29:09 GMT wim grammar I love your podcast. Today, I would love to grab all the hundreds MP3 files you have. Thanks. Lovely thanks. I love grammar girl. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=13078#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=13078#Comments Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:21:49 GMT None grammar il means: in or into legal means: order to be observed by law. Illegal means: in form or into form. Illegal means: To do something out of order in form. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=13030#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx?commentid=13030#Comments Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:33:56 GMT Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:20:53 GMT http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us