… [Arguing before the Supreme Court,] University of Michigan law professor Richard D. Friedman [said in answer to] a question from Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, … that [something] was “entirely orthogonal” to the argument he was making…
… Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stopped him.
“I’m sorry,” Roberts said. “Entirely what?”
“Orthogonal,” Friedman repeated, and then defined the word: “Right angle. Unrelated. Irrelevant.”
“Oh,” Roberts replied.
Friedman again tried to continue, but he had caught the interest of Justice Antonin Scalia, who considers himself the court’s wordsmith. Scalia recently criticized a lawyer for using “choate” to mean the opposite of “inchoate,” a word that has created a debate in the dictionary world.
“What was that adjective?” Scalia asked Monday. “I liked that.”
“Orthogonal,” Friedman said.
“Orthogonal,” Roberts said.
“Orthogonal,” Scalia said. “Ooh.”…
January 12th, 2010 at 9:49AM
Very common to use the word in that way among statistics wonks.
January 12th, 2010 at 10:49AM
It is a very important word in vector calculus (and in applications to statistics), which does not seem to have been a component of the Chief Justice’s education.
January 12th, 2010 at 10:51AM
Shouldn’t the headline be, “Whenever UD hears the word..”? Because there’s really nothing about the word generally or its specific use here that deserves any sort of scathe.
January 12th, 2010 at 10:56AM
Ah, but the exchange continued:
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.
January 12th, 2010 at 12:54PM
Pete: Right you are. I’ll change it.
January 12th, 2010 at 3:23PM
It’s also common in software engineering. Looks like we turned something from our education into a metaphor.
January 12th, 2010 at 4:19PM
The corresponding post and comment thread over at the Volokh Conspiracy is worth reading.
January 12th, 2010 at 10:02PM
OrthoGynol is orthogonal with unwanted pregnancy.
January 13th, 2010 at 12:19AM
LOL, Polish Peter.